Will Smith

30:19That's crazy. And music kind of took a little bit of a backseat, which is a part of my inspiration now. I've actually never concentrated on music the way that I've wanted to. Music was always second to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, or it was second, you know, even when I got things to go together, like Men in Black, so we do Men in Black, and then the song is also a hit for the soundtrack. I was tripping, though, because I was looking it up, I was like, that didn't even, Men in Black was a huge song, but anyone who was there to remember, that song was huge, still is huge. I didn't even chart. I go, I can't be, but it's like it wasn't even officially released as a single.

31:03That's why I didn't chart. So it really was like a secondary. A secondary, yeah. You know, music was always the mistress and she doesn't like that. So I'm trying to devote to her. Trying to devote. You know, and even I went back trying to look up press you might've done around Big Willie style, yeah it's not a lot like you didn't really promote those that much yeah so you know with big willy style that was coming off of men in black so i was trying to use the momentum of that but you know jazzy jeff and the fresh prince have never even gone on tour right so we've done dates on other tours we did dates on runs house um and we've been on and off of other people's tours.

31:49You never did a headlining tour together? Never did a headlining tour. So this will be the first time ever that you know, we put together a tour and I get to headline a world tour. Never. So all that live audio on like, he's a DJ, I'm the rapper, that's from just like one-off. One-off show. So, you know, we would do, the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air would shoot on Friday nights. So what we would do is the taping would be Friday night. We, you know, fly out. We do a show Saturday night somewhere and then Sunday back on a plane to be back at work on the Fresh Prince on Monday. So we were getting one show here, one show there, but never have actually done a tour.

32:38This will be the first time in my life that I'm going to put together a full tour, full show, full performance. Headlining. Headlining. Do you have it worked out yet? I have my 90 minutes. I had never been on stage for 90 minutes before. So I did two shows in San Diego a couple of months ago. It was wild. The world is so desperate for nostalgia right now. Yeah. The world wants that so bad. And it's like people just yearning for a time when things were a little bit easier. Yeah. So that and then the latter half of the show transitioned into the new music. And it was just, it was beautiful how people went with me, you know?

33:32And, you know, because it's really in one arena, I'm a seasoned artist. And then in this new space, I'm like brand new. That's a weird experience. That's a weird space you exist in. So I'm trying to find that new way. So it's the first time I've ever done 90 Minutes was, you know, two months ago. In San Diego. In San Diego. I've never been on a music stage for 90 minutes. I've never done more than 60 minutes. I wasn't sold on Catching the Tour now. I'm definitely coming out. That's crazy to me. You know, the nostalgia of it, I mean, going back and listening to Big Willie and Willennial, I mean, that was a trip for me.

34:16There were some real interesting things. When I was going back and revisiting them, I mean, I owned both in the day and played them incessantly, but going back and revisiting that now, like Nas is on it. First of all, I didn't even realize going back, Tone and Poke. Tone and Poke, yeah, the track master. How did you get that? So when you go to do your first solo album, you probably could have, at that point, your will, you probably could have, I mean, you had done, hold on, let's think about this, between Code Red and Big Willie style, it's Six Degrees of Separation comes out. Yeah, so I was doing a movie between each one, the television show and a movie in between.

34:55In between. You film and release Bad Boys, Independence Day and Men in Black. Yes. So, I mean, you're like... No vacation. No nothing. And you end Fresh Prince. You rap Fresh Prince. So, like, all that's happened in the four years between the last Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince record and Big Willie Style. So how do you end up, and I love Trackmasters, I love Tone and Polk. Yeah, they were the truth. How do you end up with them? How do you end up with them being the... How do we meet Tone and Polk? I think, so Big Willie Style, I think they were signed to the label at that time. Columbia. Yeah, they were signed to Columbia.

35:37and we I don't remember how we met the first time we met but they were like the top of the top they were producing everybody at that time you know Nas and Mary J Blige you know so they had hits they were the guys of the moment and you know that was a little bit tough because Jeff at that point had produced everything so we had never worked with outside producers some stuff on the last one right like Teddy Riley did a song. But even that was coming through Jeff. So Jeff, so this was the first time that I went with producers and, you know, worked separately on, on music. So, uh, was that a tough conversation to have?

36:25Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's Jeff is real easy going. Jeff, Jeff is real easy going. And he, he had, uh, he had starred in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. So he was cool at that time. But it was a little bit of a difficult time because I was trying to, like, do something new. I was trying to, like, find a new direction, a new voice. Not unsimilar to now. Right. You know, I think that that might be the central human skill to be able to transform and transition, you know? It's like to be able to make the adjustment. This one's bigger than that, you know, but it is, I'm thinking about it, I hadn't thought about it.

37:13It's a really similar kind of seeking for the new artistic expression. Well, the trajectory, again, Fresh Prince, that as a sort of the point of view for making the music into Big Will, Willie Style, Millennium, That being like the newly minted movie star. Yes. That's like that. Big Willie. Taking it full, Big Willie. That's that point of view. And yeah, right now it feels more personal than ever. I mean, although Fresh Prince probably was personal too. It's just life's a lot lighter when you're 18, 19, 20. It's different when you're, as an actor, it's kind of you, but you're playing a character, whereas the music is much more personal.

37:58Yeah. And I think what happened in the first part of my career, I rejected anything that wasn't happy and joyful and getting jiggy with it. You know, I was living fully in that space and I kind of banished, you know, those other parts of myself. So this is really the first time in my career with music for sure that I'm allowing a fuller spectrum of my thoughts and feelings to be delivered in the music. Although Willennium, you end with The Rain. Yeah, with The Rain, yeah. I put it as the last song. The last song. I put it as the last song. I was like, okay, this one got a little sadness in it.

38:57So we're going to put that as the last song. It's incredible, though, man. Jill Scott's amazing. I think that's one of her first features on a record. You know what I mean? Jill Scott. That was one of the first records that I worked with somebody to write. Common wrote that with me. Really? Yeah, The Rain. What? So me and Common worked together on that. How did that come together? He was just in the studio. He was in another studio. He was working on it. He was like, yo, what you working on? And he literally just came in the studio and started throwing lines, and me and Common wrote The Rain together.

39:31Wow. Yeah. There's been people who said that you were doing that with Nas on Big Willie Style. Nas, yeah. Is that true or no? Yeah, so what was the track? It was Just Cruisin'. Just Cruisin'. We did one called Just Cruisin' with Nas. Yeah, so wrote that with Nas and wrote The Rain with Common. That's wild, man. Yeah, that's like collaboration is everything, man. This is like opening up to other ideas and other voices and hearing, you know, what people would do differently. Right. And it's like how common's mind works and how Nas's mind works. And for me, it was it was it was trying to reach for people that I admired to, like, pull something out of me.

40:22I just, I just, I wasn't ready at that time. The genre had changed so much too between, I mean, you know, just like your career changed so much between Code Red and Big Willie Style. It's like between Code Red and Big Willie Style, it's like Illmatic and It Was Written comes out. Life After Death, or Ready to Die and Life After Death, Me Against the World and all that. It's like, it was like a big, you know, it just changed so much. I always wanted to rap like that, you know? And I just never gave myself permission, you know, to make things that weren't at the top of joyful energy, you know, to be able to settle back a little bit into different emotions and different energies.

41:08And this is the first time I always wanted hits. I wanted big, giant, global hit records. And I knew how to make, I still know how to make records that will play in 190 countries in the world, you know. So I'm trying to release that outcome desire. And now I really want to express myself, right? I want to like explore what's going on in here and share it and find that connective space with other people who could enjoy the experience of my testimony. Yeah. Like what happened I saw with my book when you open and are vulnerable in that way. It's helpful. Yeah. It's helpful because, you know, we all think we're by ourselves.

42:09Did you know you were going to be that open when you started the book? Like, did you? Because I was like, wow, this is you are being vulnerable, which was such a gift. But no, I certainly didn't know that when I started, you know, but as I as I got into it, that like that the medium lends itself to more more openness. Yeah. It's a little more difficult for me doing that with the music because you got to make it rhyme, you know. You figured it out. It's another thing when you just, in a book, you just say it and you, you know, and you have so much space in literature. You have so much space to make your point.

42:53You made use of it, though. And I'm sure there's more. I'm sure you could. I mean, I know you're probably going to do another one. Oh, for sure. I hope you do. But that's a substantial book. And, you know, I just couldn't help but thinking about it when I'm listening to Beautiful Scars. and First Love, which will be out by the time we release this. India Martinez. Gorgeous track. She's incredible on that intro. Can you talk about First Love a bit? So the way I'm creating my current music is anything that sparks. I'm making a song, right? I used to be directed by what I thought would land. And so now I'm not paying attention to whether it lands or not.

43:42I'm only focusing on an accurate expression of whatever came up for me, whatever came up inside of me. So with the first love, I saw this video of in Cuba with these kids learning flamenco. And it was this really strange mix of kids in Cuba. And it was the flamenco guitars and all that, you know, and it's like flamenco is really sexy. And, you know, these kids were like 12 or 13. And I just watched. There was a little boy and a little girl and they were how they were looking at each other. And I was like, wow, you see that look. And you remember like that first time you fell in love with somebody.

44:36That feeling of absolute joy and possibility and anxiety and all of that stuff that gets mixed up in first love. And then I was noticing how we lose the ability to be that open after we get hurt. And then once we're adults, we don't even allow ourselves to fall into that delicious, mystical place of first love. I don't think anyone would accept it if you try. You know, your friends, what do you think? But it's really, and I was looking at those kids. I was like, wow, that's what we all really want. We really want to feel that with no fear at all. And then I saw India perform in Marbella, and I saw her perform, and she had a flamenco piece.

45:36I was like, so I pitched the idea to her, and she loved it, and she went in the studio. Did you have words already? I had the emotion of what I wanted to do, but it was the flamenco hip hop blend that I got excited about. So we went back and forth for a couple of months and the record First Love is what came out of it. It's really amazing, man. Yeah. After this last break, we'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Will Smith. In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal. T-Mobile knows all about that.

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49:03Machines that make you feel more human. Because a car that doesn't make you feel something is a car that stops short of amazing. Experience amazing at your Lexus dealer. it's funny i was sick about four years ago and i threw on your audiobook three years ago and i spent like five days in bed just like with your voice in there and your book just it blew me away oh thank you man and it may you know just i think the way it is with a book that was that personal yeah and that you read it too and the way you produced it it really was like man i feel like i know this guy now you know weird but from what like what i could glean from that what tripped me out is it seems like there's this kind of duality with you that's that's that's there's the highly rational will yeah it's accepted to mit you know very mathematical precision based rationality and then it does seem though there's the flip side of that which is like the intuitive yeah artist no i'm gonna go i'm gonna go sign a record deal yeah uh and me and jazz are gonna go tour the world the the unit i learned and one of the things i talked about in the book i learned that as much as our minds want the universe to be rational and logical, it's not.

50:22The universe is magical, right? So that's why we love movies like The Matrix because deep down inside, we know that's how it really is. That's why we like it's that the universe And, you know, you can say God or you can say source or you can say the quantum field, whatever you think the energy is of the universe that you know is there, that you know you can tap into. Right. You know, that's why Star Wars, you know, the force in martial arts is chi. Everybody talks about a source energy that you can tap into and you become exponential. Right. So very young, I connected my thoughts to that energy.

51:21that is this magical source, God, spiritual energy that creates things exponential that's directed by your desires and your energy and your mind and your heart. So I've been aware of that. This is the first time in my life, probably the past three years, where I am fully committed to that energy from a spiritual standpoint. You know, in the past couple of years, I've read every holy book. You know, I went looking for God and found him. Yeah. Yeah. It's turning up in the lyrics for this album. I mean, Fresh Prince to Big Willie, Willennium to what you put out now. This is the most introspective.

52:25Yes, for sure. It's like, you know, I feel like I've been blessed with cheat codes. You know, I've been blessed with secrets. and I'm trying to figure out how to share them without sounding like the crazy dude. You know, I want y 'all to get some of this abundance. Was that the impetus then to start doing music again? Yeah, you know, what happened, it really started for me on emancipation. So I did a movie in a slave drama a couple of years ago. And, you know, it was it was really brutal going into the the mindset and the the the absolute malice and malevolence of slavery and holding holding my mind in that in that place for three months.

53:32and then COVID hit. Yeah. And I ended up having to stay in that emotional field for nine months. Because you're not sure when you're going back to shooting. You don't want to get out of it. Yeah, so I was staying in and... What does that look like though? I never even thought about that. What do you do to... I mean, you're Will Smith. You're the product of your parents, of Philly, of Quincy Jones, of all these magical, wonderful people and you're putting yourself into a role That is, you know, and obviously this is our lineage. Yeah. Sure enough. But in 2020 or whatever, you have to put yourself in the mindset of a of a of a slave person who's being treated as less than human.

54:14What did you what did you do to do that? You know, as an actor, you, you know, you consume all of the literature and, you know, there there are, you know, tapes of former slaves and things, you know, enslaved people. And you're you you consume it all. And then there's a point where something clicks. and uh for me the point where it clicked on emancipation i had um i said i wanted to use the real um shackles right they were like hey we can make them lighter and we can do that i was like no i want them i want the actual shackles so they they found you know an actual one they were going to rebuild, but they put it around my neck and I was chained and it was on my neck and I was standing there with it.

55:12And then the key wouldn't open it. And we're like, oh no. And it was stuck and my heart starts pounding and I'm standing there. And in that moment, it just started opening up. Now I have people that are running around like desperately trying to get this thing off of my neck. But in those 15 minutes where they couldn't get it off, it was like the, the concept exploded inside of me of what it's like to be at the mercy of other people's whims. And I just understood. It was like, wow, I'm sitting here shook with people running around, and tried and get it off, what would it feel like if people didn't give a shit?

56:05What would it feel like if people would kick me and punch me when I couldn't fight back? Yeah. You know, and it just popped inside of my mind. You're like, all of a sudden, for whatever reason, I didn't want to look people in their eyes. I was embarrassed. Right. And I felt weak and I felt vulnerable. And I was like, this is what it would do. This is what it does to your spirit. And I'm standing there and my whole crew is there and they're looking at me, too. And I'm like, I'm deeply disempowered and and scared and embarrassed. I was like, yep. And like all of the emotions exploded inside of me of how you're dehumanized by that kind of brutality.

56:57So, you know, that once that piece awakened and you get in touch with those emotions as an actor, you start to be able to call on them and you call on those memories and things. But what happened is I ended up having to stay in that field for nine months. And something happened to me that never happened before as an actor. I started to dream as the character would dream. I was having his dreams. Right. And, you know, some of the some of the images I was seeing were like full nightmare imagery. And it's it's it like popped open a well. And, you know, in in the character well opened up inside of me a another part, a banished part of will opened up also.

57:53Yeah. And it's just I just I became a brand new human after emancipation. Wow. There was literally a part of you. I mean, I think about that, too. When I was listening to your book, you know, I think a lot about Obama. Yeah. As a for instance, like the how he has to be, you know, beyond reproach. Yes. In order. Yes. You know, it's like, oh, you wore a beige suit. Like, you know, it's like, you know, thinking back to like Fox not wanting to cast you in Independence Day. Oh, he's black. It's not going to sell foreign. These are things that you're, you know, even as your will and you're holding your confidence and you're holding your spirit up as an example for all of us and how to overcome, you're dealing with these things.

58:46So there is, I mean, I think probably in all of us, in every black American, there is probably some wounded part. I can only imagine what being a slave, channeling that would. One of the things that I realized in the last couple of years is we're all wounded. Wounding is existential. The specific parts of our personal wounding is unique to our experience, but it's not unique to humanity. You know, women feel the same kind of wounding with men. And there's there's a sameness to our existential wounding that makes us mistreat each other. Right. And the the the recognition of our plight of all being dropped into this existential meat grinder, this place of absolute chaos and brutality and confusion.

1:00:04And when I can find my sameness with you, we're less likely to fight about it. But if I need to prove somehow I'm worse off than you because of you, then, you know, fighting is the only thing left to do. Right, right. But the unique wound that you had that was exposed to this role, you feel led to this creativity. It's the, I started to see code, you know, that's why it was fun for me to do The Matrix. Is that how you started thinking about The Matrix as an entry point to present the music? I was like that. It is. We all feel that it's brilliant. The Matrix is brilliant, but we really start to look at it.

1:00:57And when you start to see the practicality of what it actually means. And in essence, it's the idea that you have a story about reality and I have a story about reality and neither one of our stories is actually true. Right. Right. We have, you know, my story is my father beat up my mother in front of me. And because of that, I felt like I had to sing and dance and make the house happy. And then that's how I became Will Smith. Right. And, you know, I have my perception of myself that is nowhere near the actual. There's a meta. Yeah, a thing that I am, right? So Michael Beckwith has a really beautiful phrase.

1:02:03He calls it the friction of fictions. And he says, that's what people are dealing with. I am fighting for my false story to be true. And you're fighting for your false story to be true. And you see it in relationships and you see it in governments and you, you, you know, you see where I am clinging to a story that I desperately need to be true. And that's the, that's what I really like about the matrix. It's like, yo, it's, it's, that's not true. You know? And so you're making music now. I know I'm going far. But we'll go back to music. No, but I'm just trying to thread it together. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:02:49So really, this was, and you had this realization in a real concrete way. You felt the need to share this. That's where this different version of Will Smith, the rapper, the musician, is coming from on this project. In its most simple form, I feel like there is a new wave that's coming. Like, we are going someplace in terms of consciousness, in terms of humanity, in terms of connection, in terms of understanding. And, you know, I really do believe that the power of it is going to be in deeply and personally looking at ourselves and like the actual fiber of what's happening between us. Like to truly understand like the nature of reality separate from your thoughts about reality.

1:04:01Like biting down on what our thoughts and beliefs are versus, okay, let me, I'm going to back off of that just a little bit to see if I can see what's really truly happening in this moment. And it's like with my music, I really am trying to explore myself and trying to explore the world and trying to figure out how we can treat each other better. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Well, with that as the mission and you have the words coming to you, how do you set out to do? I mean, I know you spent some time in Spain and there's some great allusions to the Moors and Beautiful Scars, for instance. And like, so how do you start?

1:04:44But your kids are making incredible music. How do you start to figure out how I'm going to put this together? You know, so I start with really simple, basic ideas. The first song I released was called You Can Make It. And I got a number one gospel record. That was quite a treat. but it felt like the most basic kindest thing that you can say to another human being is to recognize that even though you don't know what they're going through you know that everybody is going through something you know in this room you look around you know every single person is going through something that's what connects us yeah somebody just lost a loved one.

1:05:43Somebody's going through a breakup. Somebody lost a job. Somebody just got a diagnosis. All of that is happening in this room. Can't pay a bill. You lost a home. In Los Angeles now, the fires. Everybody's going through something. To me, it felt like foundational humanity is, hey, brother, I don't know what it is, but you can make it you know so i wanted to to speak to that you know sort of collective difficulty that i think in understanding that difficulty i think that it that it potentially creates a higher level of compassion and then did it drift into let's kind of make this essentially a gospel song?

1:06:36Like, let's play in that field? And that's just what happened. It was like, I was looking for the sound that captured the spirit of you can make it. Yeah. You know, and, you know, Jason came in with the Sunday service and he really, really blessed that track. The Sunday service choir on that is incredible, man. Oh my goodness. And you did that performance and you had Kirk Franklin. Kirk Franklin, yeah. Unbelievable, man. That was Chandler Moore also. You know, it's I'm really searching. I feel like a brand new artist right now. You know, I know I have nostalgia, you know, and I'm definitely going to give people the nostalgia when I go on tour and performing the old music.

1:07:26But I'm really looking for the next phase of my career, the next phase of my artistry. I'm trying to find that next place. And I'm really excited to try to put words and imagery and sound to the fire hose of ideas I'm experiencing. Do you think there'll be multiple projects? I know you're breaking it into chapters. So multiple chapters. Seasons. Seasons. Three seasons. Excuse me. Three seasons. We were talking about the book. I got on the chapter. Seasons. But it seems like, are you still, like, are you just, is this something where now that everything's flowing, like, do you think you'll just keep the...

1:08:11Yeah, it's, there's nothing like music. There's nothing like music. What do you listen to day to day when you're not making music? Like, when you're going back to maybe, let's say, 2015 to 2020, before you're in music making mode, like, what do you... Oh, what was I listening to back then? Afrobeats was starting to pop. And I was looking at a lot of global music. That's right. You turned up with like Bomba Stereo in Colombia. Yeah, and I was looking at what was happening in Korea. They were really starting to cultivate a music industry. They make pop songs as good as anyone now. It's unbelievable.

1:08:51They really took off with television. The Korean TV is wild right now. But yeah, it was global music. I was looking for, you know, the sounds of the world. I really feel like the necessity of artists today is to get out ahead of politicians and make connections and make collaborations. and create some understanding through artistic exchange, you know, before the misunderstandings turn into military action. Yeah, that's the history of music, really. Yes, absolutely. It's artists being out ahead of the politicians. Yes, absolutely. We're going to go to Louisiana and Texas and record. Yes, absolutely.

1:09:43People on working fields and, you know, prison labor. We're going to go record this stuff and put it, you know, And then that's how you get, you know, rock and roll in the 50s. Yeah, I know, right. So it's like that is the real explosion of creativity and music in the 20th century we think about is from that. So the idea of getting back to that. Yeah, definitely. The, you know, global artistic collaboration in today's world, I think, is imperative. Yeah. Like it's it's imperative that we get to know each other and get to understand each other. And, you know, for the first time in human history, the infrastructure is available for that kind of exchange.

1:10:29It's funny. I had a during COVID, I had an interesting experience watching the the Tiger Woods documentary that was on HBO. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas, you know, Tiger is just like incredible. Right. you grew up just she's insane but you know watching that i was like man it just seems like he at some point you see all the early footage with him on the on the golf course with his dad you're like it feels like at some point like damn like maybe he doesn't have a connection back to that like it feels like in some weird way you know when his dad's gone it's just it's just it feels like this it feels like a great tragedy when later in life we still can't find some connection back to who we are these formative things and yeah i think i my experience is i'm like i'm currently in that uh space of trying to like tap back into that deep well of like essential me yeah you know And, you know, life gets caked on top of it, you know, and the picking of a personality, right, is like, you know, we have this constellation of things that we're going to let ourselves be.

1:11:44And then there's all these things over there that we're not going to let ourselves be. And we imprison parts of ourselves, you know. So part of the process of what I'm experiencing is a little bit like a prison break, you know, to kind of open that scary place where I take a really good look at what I really am versus what I want people to think I am. It's amazing, though, too, how we can even know these things and somehow get it. Because, I mean, you even have a cut from the early night, like Shadow Self. Yeah, Shadow Dreams. Shadow Dreams. Shadow Dreams. And you're kind of essentially there where you're saying that.

1:12:23You already know it's like there's these different. You pulled that one from deep. You pulled Shadow Jeeps. I had to go deep in that. That's from deep. It's a great cut, man. People sleep on that cut. That's like way deep hidden on the album. People sleep on that cut, man. People sleep on that. People also sleep on You Saw My Blinker. Yeah. Everyone's tripping, Will's cussing on records now. He ain't heard. You Saw My Blinker, bitch. That was Two Shorts. Favorite Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince record. where we went to Oakland and Chew Short was like, that's the one. You'll never make nothing better than that.

1:12:57You saw my blinker, bitch. Incredible, man. I want to ask you one more thing before you go just because I got you here. Is it true that you met Notorious B.I.G. like for the first time? The night he got killed. What in the world? Let me tell you. I don't even want to Say this out loud because it's like a terrible jinx. I met Biggie, you know, four hours before he got killed. And I talked to Prince eight hours before he died. I talked to Prince and he called and he was pitching. He was saying that me, him and Jay-Z should start an entertainment company. and he said he had talked to Jay and he wanted to do it and we talked that night and in the morning he was gone I just I don't know what that says about me well I don't think you have enough experiences in life look things happen oh no I'm like no wait don't call me don't call me I think you've had plenty of phone calls I'm sure you're okay don't take it that way but that's gotta be a disorienting experience to wake up and be like I just met this you know Or I just met this insanely talented, brilliant human, and now they're gone.

1:14:19Or I just had a phone call with Prince, you know. Yeah, no. The Biggie one made me cry because it was, like, stupid. Yeah. You know? And it was, like, just centered on hip-hop, like, for rapping, you know? And that one hurt me. It scared me, too, you know? But, yeah, I'm going there. Okay, man. All right. Well. Man, maybe that was a dark note to answer. No, no, no, it was good. It was good. You're bringing the brothers down. Bringing the rain, okay? Bringing the rain. Man, Will, thanks. I'm excited to hear the seasons. Yeah. I'm just, this is, and I'm excited to see what else comes of this, man.

1:15:09It's been interesting. It's so fun to follow the journey on Instagram, too. I mean, just seeing what you were doing in Spain and the creation of the album. Yeah, it's really cool. Having this rollout and beautiful scars. The video came out this morning. And in true will fashion, again, it's like red pill, blue pill, rational decision, rational decision. Take them both. Yes, yes. I love that. I love that idea. Nope, take them both. I want both things. It's incredible. You know, that's the paradox of this whole thing, man. It's like both answers are always correct. God will meet you down whatever road you go.

1:15:42May we all learn to live like you, man. And just, you know, have it all, man. All love, brother. Appreciate you. Appreciate you. Thank you, man. Thanks to Will Smith for taking the time to drop by Amazon Music Studio 126 to walk Broken Record through his career, artistry, and new project based on a true story. You can hear a playlist of all of our favorite Will and Will adjacent tracks in the episode description or by visiting brokenrecordpodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at The Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter at Broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan.

1:16:21Our engineer is Ben Toleday. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad-free listening for$4.99 a month. Look for Pushman Plus on Apple Podcast subscriptions. And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richman.

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