The movie star and member of DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince released his Class of ’88 podcast on Friday
Will Smith still remembers the moment he knew he wanted to be an actor.
In Will Smith’s new podcast Class of ’88 from Audible and Wondery, the movie star/rapper, 55, delves into hip-hop history, including his days performing in the duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince before turning to acting. In the first episode of the podcast, which was released on Friday, the Oscar winner talks about when he realized at the beginning of his music career that it made sense to be in front of the camera.
Smith explains that he got the acting bug while filming the music video for “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” the second single from their 1988 second studio album. He’s a DJ, I’m a rapper.
The Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff.
David Corio/Michael Ochs Archive/Getty
Will Smith once tried to saw off DJ Jazzy Jeff’s leg with butter knives before recording an album
Although Smith was initially nervous about releasing the upbeat track as a single because he “desperately wanted to be respected as a rapper,” creating the campy visual in which he plays a moody teenager and theatrically raps the lyrics ended up being a formative experience.
“To help promote the song, Jive [Records] decided to make a video”, the King Richard the star said on the podcast. “[Producer] Ann Carli brought in a director, Scott Kalvert, who had a cool visual style that eventually became the signature style of Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince — bright and colorful with stylized graffiti-covered sets. I rapped straight into the camera while the actress playing my mom chased me around with a rolling pin.”
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He continued: “I think it was during the making of that video that I realized that I love being in front of the camera.”
Carli also reflected on his appearance on the podcast. She said that as she and the director watched the footage, “We turn to each other and say, ‘Shit. This kid is a superstar. This kid, the Fresh Prince, is going to be a big movie star. He’s going to be as big as Eddie Murphy.”
She added that she eventually told the duo’s manager at the time, Russell Simmons, about the appeal of the rising artist in front of the camera. Carli said: “Russell told me, very famously, he said, ‘He might be the next Malcolm-Jamal Warner, but he’s not Eddie Murphy.'”
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DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince.
Al Pereira/Michael Ochs Archive/Getty
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith relationship timeline
A few years later, Smith got his own star vehicle, the beloved sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which ran from 1990 to 1996 and earned him two Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical Series. Amidst the series’ success, he also transitioned to film starring in films such as 1993’s Six degrees of separation and in 1995 Bad boys.
Class of ’88 debuted Friday and features conversations between Smith and his peers in the hip-hop world of the late ’80s.
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He and longtime collaborator DJ Jazzy Jeff, 58, (whose real name is Jeffrey Allen Townes) talk about their time as a hip-hop duo when the music industry was still discovering that rap could be profitable. In one of the anecdotes, they recalled 1987, when they were supposed to be filming, and Smith tried to saw off the cast from a broken leg that had healed for the producer.
Salt-N-Pepa, Queen Latifah, Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, Rakim and Chuck D also make guest appearances on the podcast.
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Source: HIS Education