Bob

It’s really hard to rank. Willenium is and always has been the clear #1 for me. It’s the most complete album he made. I could listen to random songs from it or front to back. It may also be that I vividly remember getting that album and playing it on repeat at age 12. I will acknowledge BWS is ten times more commercially successful, but it feels like a grab bag of singles in comparison. So: 1. Willenium ……… ……… 2. BWS 3. BOATS 4. Lost and Found 5. Born to Reign Lost and Found could switch places with BOATS. BOATS has two strikes: (a) cursing and (b) saying “someone you could base your whole life on.” I largely avoid commenting on his personal life but if anything it’s one of those don’t meet your heroes things when I think about red table plus the slap. Lost and Found’s strikes are the mid 2000’s style he lifts (Party Starter/Ludacris) and his fifteen remixes of Switch lol. Born to Reign will forever be the hardest to relisten to. It was a real creative stretch which I hate to penalize.

I’m so glad he put this out and that it fits easily with the time length and style of reels/tiktok. The more this kind of flow gets promotion the more I hope he leans in to these types of songs.

You quoting it is exactly what I came here to say. The 20 of us or so who ate up every “freestyle” post Lost and Found became, shall I say, a bit disenchanted knowing he wasn’t turning over a new record. I had to shake my cynicism and say: (a) yes, this is likely a track he wrote, (b) it could be on the cutting room floor or repurposed but (c) he’s not done producing new music this year so I can just relax and enjoy. definitely high quality verses for sure even if something he had in the hopper already.

Man it’s been 20 years but I was looking to find your review of the album. For real. Very much aligned with your thoughts. The cursing is my biggest issue - some ordering too of songs but I’m coming around to it as a total piece (rather than the sum of its parts).

You’re right. Call me desperate for more jazzy/prince storytelling. I’m starting to really embrace the rest of the album too but that beat is just so refreshing alongside the character critique.

Thank you! Feels like I never left (save for a few Facebook logins when I couldn’t access this account it’s gotta be over a decade now). I hope Jeff is more present in the next two albums he releases this year (crazy to say multiple albums, even just one from Will). There’s a real opportunity with the nostalgia love society has these days - even bad nostalgia wins. Now with will and Jeff’s talent, it’s a win - win. They could both commercially and critically really do something special with a cover to cover fresh Prince and Jazzy album.

I’m surprised no one is calling out the barbershop intro. It’s such a lost art and a throwback plus such a great critique of himself and the moment.

Found a way to log back in to my original account and so fun to see everyone hyped. I have to say, I can’t stop playing the intro barbershop - straight up I think I can beat Mike Tyson vibes. Been giving the whole record a couple plays so far. Definitely have three or four favs and trying to get a handle on the rest.

The Ringer went in on Will for his patented "I will do a live impromptu performance of my hits every time I need to market a movie". This performance on Colbert ranked pretty high on their rankings. (This is a separate article from the Ringer article I just posted about him being the original gangster on the Ringer's site). https://theringer.com/will-smith-suicide-squad-fresh-prince-4d1662ed7b36#.6u1p0y2lh

Didn't see this posted yet on the forum (if so, apologies). With the frustration abound about Will's lack of engagement in the music scene, I thought I'd share this article from the Ringer (the heir to Grantland, the niche sports and pop culture site). It got me on a positive note about the Fresh Prince. Much of what it discusses is what we've mused about on the forum for years, but I thought it'd make people smile, as it did for me. Some of his rhymes would be pretty shocking if he did them today given his brand. Anyway - enjoy: https://theringer.com/will-smith-started-as-a-gangsta-rapper-65e7a9afa51e#.t0bg4yf7m Build a Case Will Smith Was a Gangsta Rapper by Shea Serrano Before there was NWA, there was … the Fresh Prince? Arturo Torres Will Smith started out his career as a gangsta rapper. I understand that it feels stupid to read or consider that for the first time, but did you know that when Alfred Wegener first presented the idea of continental drift in 1912, he was widely criticized and mocked? That’s true. Scientists used to think that there were mountains on the earth because the earth was shrinking and the mountains were just excess material pushing up on itself, like how after you blow a balloon up real big and then let all the air out of it, it gets wrinkly. So: There was this album that came out in November of 1987 called N.W.A. and the Posse. Occasionally it gets listed as NWA’s first album, but it was just a compilation album that starred NWA. (This was about nine months before they released Straight Outta Compton, the album that made them the most famous gangsta rap group of all time.) N.W.A. and the Posse had 11 songs on it. Five of the songs were by acts that had some sort of tie to NWA but weren’t actually in the group (the Posse, as it were), and the remaining six featured members of NWA. I mention this all because one of the songs led by an NWA member has an important connection to Will Smith, otherwise known as the Fresh Prince, otherwise known as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. The song is called “Fat Girl.” It’s by Eazy-E and Ron-De-Vu, and it’s about a woman Eazy-E says is overweight and also in love with him. In the second verse, Eazy-E describes an altercation between the two: She begins aggressively pursuing him, hugging him and kissing on him without his permission. There’s a point where she gives him a hug so big that she lifts his tiny body up off the ground, and that’s just a great and happy thing to think about — his little Nike Cortez gangster shoes dangling at the end of his helpless legs. But then he breaks free of her grip, runs to his house, and begins loading a gun to defend himself. (This seems like an overreaction on his part.) She comes running at him and he tries to shoot her, but his gun jams so he grabs a harpoon gun(!) and swings it at her. It’s unclear whether or not he hits her with it — he raps, “As I swung, the fat girl fell,” which leaves it open to interpretation — but based on the provocative nature of Eazy-E’s songs, I’m inclined to believe that he connected. (However, prior to this moment, I wasalso inclined to believe that Eazy-E was not an avid marine-life hunter — having ready access to his own harpoon gun would seem to suggest otherwise, so there’s a chance I’m wrong here, too.) It’s a weird scene and a hostile scene, but not one that seems even a tiny bit strange happening in NWA’s version of the universe. And this all connects back to Will Smith, whose gummy-rap music is generally considered the antithesis to NWA’s gangsta rap anarchy. Here’s how: Jive Records Seven months before N.W.A. and the Posse was released, Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff put out their first album, Rock the House. The first song on the album is called “Girls Ain’t Nothing But Trouble” and it’s about how girls aren’t anything but trouble (rappers in the ’80s liked to title their songs in the most direct ways possible). It’s fun and it’s catchy and Will Smith is Will Smith so it all feels very nonthreatening to listen to, even today. But the thing of it is: Nearly the exact same scenario plays out with Smith and a girl as in Eazy-E’s “Fat Girl,” and it ends just as violently, if not more so, depending on how you feel about trash cans. Smith meets a girl, they make chitchat, then she becomes aggressive. He raps, “She started grabbin’ all over me and kissing and hugging,” and so what do you think Smith does to this girl who is grabbin’ all over him and kissing and hugging? I’ll tell you what he does, because if you don’t already know then you’ll never, ever guess: He ****ing punches her in the chin. Can you even believe that? Picture that. Picture Will Smith punching a woman in the chin. It’s as unfunny to think about as it is funny to think about Eazy-E getting lifted up off the ground during a hug. There’s a version of “Girls Ain’t Nothing but Trouble” that came out in 1988 and it had a proper video, so it’s the way more popular version of the song. In that one, he just shoves her away after she starts kissing on him. But the punch is there in the original version on Rock The House. The full line is, “She started grabbin’ all over me and kissing and hugging / So I punched her in her chin, I said, ‘You better stop buggin’!’” After he punches her, the woman starts yelling that she’s been raped(!!), and so guess how he responds to that? He hits her again, except this time WITH A GODDAMN TRASH CAN. The full lyric: “I got scared when she started to yell / So I hit her with a trash can and ran like hell.” (They scrubbed this part from the 1988 version as well. In that version, he gives her his wallet and runs away. Which is not a better solution.) ....(continued at: https://theringer.com/will-smith-started-as-a-gangsta-rapper-65e7a9afa51e#.t0bg4yf7m)

Good read. It actually reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend about how Will and Dwayne Johnson ("The Rock") have, in different ways, faced parallel struggles. I'd be interested to see if anyone else agrees with this: Will balanced music and film to great success when his movies were blockbusters. As his focus shifted to Oscar-worthy leads, Will's demeanor about the music industry soured, in a play for respect and credibility in the eyes of Hollywood's critics. He no longer was a duo with Jeff, as their collaborations for movie premiers became a novelty rather than a true collaboration. When the Oscar never came for Pursuit of Happyness, Will tried his hand a few more times (e.g., Seven Pounds) and found himself struggling to regain traction. What followed was sporadic shifts back into action, sequels and a moonshot goal to get his son huge starpower. Dwayne balanced sports entertainment and film until he and his then wife (who was his manager) split. He soured on his former profession and just like Will, declared he was done with that element of his life. He tried to diversify and build a resume independent his roots, but he couldn't gain traction. It was only when his ex-wife re-entered as his manager, that he remembered his roots and found a way to spark his creativity and commercial success through leveraging his roots rather than ignoring them. I think Will is doing something similar here. I think he's realizing that he is inherently the Fresh Prince in so much of what makes him tick. He has a creative mind and an outlet that truly allows such creativity is music. It's something he can perform live in front of crowds and really get a feel for the audience's reaction. Dwayne has done similar, returning to sports entertainment, as he said, to stay connected to the pulse of the fan since it's all in the moment. Will's freestyle game was legendary, his best music was when it was in narrative form (Brand New Funk, followed by Just One of Those Days and Nightmare on my Street are at the very top of my list). To lend from an earlier article posted where Jeff mentioned the ability to just release songs now and a different interview where Will acknowledged the 16 bars and repeat formula is archaic, I think Will just wants to be creative again. And he knows music is going to produce so many positive derivatives in his career in film too. It's a win-win and I'm excited because he seems truly back.

That's awesome!

I'm still cynical to a degree that I'd put actual the over/under on actual Jeff beats at maybe 2 songs on the whole album. I hope I'm wrong and that it's much more.

​Link? I am now very curious.

​I'm very much of the same opinion. He doesn't need to preach it, per se, but I think that there's no gain or benefit to him doing it, so why start now? I almost think he didn't say the word completely, but the point remains that he has so much equity built up in how he's approached rhyming that I would hate to see it dropped. Especially now that people have really moved away from hard lyrics. No one is clamoring for the G-Unit types anymore. If anything, much of popular hip hop has gotten over the "coolness" of a curse. ​what about the success of the straight up compton movie and the success of the new dr dre album? there's still some gangsta rap in mainstream today ​I think those are outliers. Important ones, absolutely, but not the trend. They all come back to a group that paved the way in that realm. It's not critical mass like it was ten years ago, where it's the norm.