A Look Back

[Ale]

I just wanted to share this interview with Will from back in the day. Very interesting, I had never read before his opinion on Janet Hubert.

Hope you guys like it! (at least those who hadn't read it yet :P )

Will Smith Talks Retirement From Rap, Ending The Fresh Prince & Jada Pinkett [1996]



If you follow my tumblr blog, you’d know that I’m really big on quotes and I spend a lot of time reading old interviews from people that I admire. Which brings me to an article I read on Will Smith in Ebony Magazine’s August 1996 issue. At the time, Will Smith had just finished the movies Bad Boy, Six Degrees of Separation, and Independence Day. He had also decided to end his role on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air because his experiences in real life had outgrown his character. (He felt as though his role was a regression for him). He had also decided to retire from rap because he was disgusted that the genre had become ”socially degenerate and misogynistic”.

In the interview, he discusses his transition from television to film, advice he received from Denzel Washington and his relationship with Jada Pinkett. He also revealed that he was bothered that Janet Hubert-Whitten felt as though he had her removed from the show and the biggest lesson he learned from his father. Check out excerpts from the lengthy interview below:


On retiring from music
When I was doing it, rap was kind of uplifting, and now it seems to be completely ignorant and socially degenerate and misogynistic. It’s very different from the rap world hat I grew up in….Now rap music is just bizarre. It’s gone beyond reality, and it’s some kind of bizarre, sick reality that just, I don’t know, it’s no good at all…..I think I’m kind of retired from music.

On ending the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
I felt like it was time to end the show. We had a nice run. I did Six Degrees and I did Bad Boys, and I was working on Independence Day, and the television show just felt confining. You’re pretty much one character, and there are not many peaks and valleys, just pretty much the same old same old. And I wanted to go out while we were good. You get up to eight or nine seasons and then you’re struggling. I wanted to go out solid, while we were still funny.

On outgrowing his character
When I started doing the The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, I was 20 years old. Inside those years, I went through three careers-music, television, movies, I got married, had a baby, divorced. It’s like I did a whole lot of living in that time. My life experiences are so far advanced beyond the character’s life experiences. It was almost like a regression for me to play the character.

On The Rumors that He Had Janet Hubert-Whitten, (Aunt Viv) Fired From The Show
That wasn’t me. Janet Hubert-Whitten was an incredible actress. She brought so much sprit and fun and warmth to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. She made that set a home. She was really special. Of course, there was pain in her not returning to the show and all that but then there was the thing that she thought it was me. That kind of irritated me a little bit, but people will make their own beds, and they are going to have to sleep in them. I didn’t have anything to do with it. She just never believed that. I think the show suffered with the loss of Janet Hubert-Whitten.

On if he’d be returning to television
At this point I’m looking forward to working in the film world. I enjoy making movies. It allows you to be someone different every time you step up to the camera. You know, television is a medium designed for mediocrity, whereas when you’re making a film, you have much more of an opportunity to achieve aesthetic perfection, or as close to that as you can get. You just have time to work on it.

On advice from Denzel Washington
I learned a valuable lesson in that you do the audience a disservice if you don’t completely commit to the character. If you are not going to commit then don’t take it.

On Jada Pinkett (they were married a year later on New Years Eve)
I have a wonderful woman in my life right now. She’s so intelligent. She’s very in touch with her emotions, which allows me to be in touch with mine. She helps me deal with everything that I have to deal with. She makes everything okay. No matter how difficult it gets, she always has something kind to say or a warm hug, or she’ll cry with you if you feel like crying. But she’ll also punch somebody in the face if they do something to me. My No. 1 attraction to Jada is intellectual. She’s just someone whom I can talk to about anything. I’ve never been able to step outside of my maleness to share myself with someone. She’s the first person with whom I’ve been able to break that down.

On The Lesson He Learned From His Father; “Never Say You Can’t Do Something”
He says he remembers one period in particular, when he was 15, when his father, who felt he “could fix anything,” insisted that he and his younger brother tear down and then rebuild a deteriorating brick wall. Through the summer and then after school in the fall and winter, Smith says, he and his brother built that wall “one brick at a time,” even mixing the cement themselves. And there were times, he says, when he doubted if they would ever finish, times when he thought his father had gone mad. When the wall was complete, he recalls, it looked great and they were proud of their work. “Dad told me and my brother, “Now don’t you all ever tell me you can’t do something.” I look back on that a lot of times in my life when I think I won’t be able to do something and I tell myself, “One brick at a time.”

On his mom & dad being his heroes
There are individual personality traits of celebrities and sports stars and people whom I admire, but the only people I ever idolized are my parents.

On his life & success
I work hard. I work very hard. A lot of times people say some people are just lucky. I don’t consider my success luck. When I was 16 and everybody else was going to parties and having fun, I said, “Okay, if I’m going to a party, I might as well get paid for it. So I became a D.J

I’m very comfortable with my life and I’m very comfortable with life in general. I think that if you put out good energy, you get good energy back. I just try to constantly put out good energy, and it comes back tenfold.


Almost 15 years later and this guy has built an amazing empire. Love it!





http://necolebitchie.com/2011/02/02/bitchie-throwback-will-smith-talks-retirement-from-rap-ending-the-fresh-prince-jada-pinkett-1996/

Edited February 3, 2011 by Ale

[Turntable]

Thats dope man, thanks. I miss FP.

[DevilsJim89]

Incredible find Ale! Keep them coming! Great read!

[VIsqo]

Awesome article, thanks for bringing it.

[bigted]

There was a lot of quality rap out and popular in the mid-90s, that's why he didn't stay retired for long when he came out with "Big Willie Style" a year later, that quote could actually be more directed towards the rap game of today than back then, btw this a great interview, never saw it before, fresh prince dropping some knowledge...

[Turntable]

That quote just proves that every generation is gonna wine about the current status of..well..anything.

[JumpinJack AJ]

I read/heard him speak on all of those topics before but never read this specific interview. It really takes me back to a good time. I've tried to chill on my ebaying a bit but I might get back into to find magazines that have interviews like this again soon since they are typically cheap.

Thanks for sharing this. I remember back in '96, I really wished he wouldn't have ended the show. Shortly after that I agreed with what he had always been saying. The one thing about this interview that I had never heard was how he "thought" he was "kind of" retired from music. Since he's 1995 interview with Rap Pages, I had only ever heard him say he was retired...period. This is the 1st interview where he didn't sound 100% sure. And he was right...if u pretend that we are unaware of how bad the mainstream and commercial face of Hip-Hop and Rap has gotten, it was totally different back then. From 1992, especially 1993 thru' 1996, it was mostly explicit, dark, overly fake gangsta rap that was getting play. I appreciated some of it for what it was, but I was even saying back then that "gangsta rap was wack...the music is fake...the vibe has changed." It had a slight pick up on it's morale in 1996, leading into the overly materialistic party era in the late 90's...leading to common street thuggary off 2000ish. From there it's gotten dumber, weaker, and overall completely pointless. Who can be motivated when they are considered an outcast who will struggle for recognition when they are clearly more intelligent, more talented, and more hard working than the idiots who are successful?

[Simon Lerkot Berglind]

That quote about today's rap.. it could be used the same way today as in 1996.

[Tyrailius]

Great find! Thanks for sharing that. I agree with everyone on the rap quote.