DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince, aka Will Smith, are officially back together and ET was backstage in the U.K. with the popular '90s duo to talk reuniting after more than a decade, stage injuries and whether their kids listen to their music.
The hip hop pair came together for their first official shows in 12 years at Friday and Saturday’s MTV Presents Summerblast Music Festival 2017 in Croatia, then at Sunday’s Livewire Festival in Blackpool, England, where Smith told ET’s Kevin Frazier that the comeback is all thanks to actor and musician LL Cool J.
“I looked at Jeff and he was getting old, man, and I was like, ‘I can’t do this to this boy,’” the former Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star joked about why the pair decided to reunite now. “It was time. LL hit me [up and] was like, ‘Dude, I'm telling you, it’s time. You have no idea the love that’s out there.’ I was listening to L like, ‘All right, I need to do it.’”
“Now I got the bug,” Smith continued. “I was on fire last night. It was the first time being on stage in a while. I blew my voice out a little -- I do that all the time. I just can’t contain myself on stage.”
In fact, Jazzy Jeff dished that it’s his job to keep Smith in line when he gets “overly excited.”
“I'm the little man in his ear telling him to calm down, just slow down,” he said. “You have to have fun with it and a lot of it is making sure that you're loose and calm on stage.”
“Well you failed last night!” chimed in Smith. “I blew my voice out hard. I hurt my knee on ‘Summertime.’ All the way through the second verse, I was trying to do the leaning to the side [move]. You can’t speed, though. I leaned a little too far and my meniscus was bothering me.”
In addition to the brief concert run -- which they hope will be extended -- the pair have also been working on new music and debuted a new track called “Get Lit” at Sunday’s performance.
As for whether we’ll see the Fresh Prince back on the small screen anytime soon, Smith noted there’s no such plans for a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reboot or reunion.
“Stuff had to go really wrong for there to be a Fresh Prince reunion special,” Smith said. “Like, I don't know what would have to happen! Nah man, you can't touch stuff like that. It's so nostalgic for people -- I'm not going nowhere near that.”
Smith was fresh out of his teens when he starred as a fictionalized version of himself in the life-changing sitcom. Today, his 19-year-old son, Jaden, is following in his footsteps as an actor and musician.
However, the Karate Kid star isn’t turning to his dad’s music for any inspiration.
“My kids don't really listen [to my music] a lot,” Smith said. “Everybody else in the world wants to hear what I say, except my kids.”
While he may not listen to his dad’s music, there’s something more important that Smith is proud to have instilled in his son – a sense of responsibility to others.
“He’s really coming into a space where he understands who he wants to be, and the big thing that I feel good about with my kids [and] the thing that my grandmother was able to instill in me was the responsibility to your family, your community and to the world,” Smith said. “Everything you do is not just for you. You are connected to everything and everybody and you have a responsibility in everything you say and do out in the world to care not only for yourself, but for everybody.”
It’s not just his kids that Smith is super proud of. The actor also gushed about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, whose latest film, Girls Trip recently crossed the $100 million mark at the domestic box office.
“With Jada, every decision that she makes is so gut-wrenching -- every time she does something, she wants it to be right,” Smith shared. “She wants to hold a certain level for women and for the world and all of that, so she really batters herself in the process of making a decision and then through the process of creating. So for me to see her have a win after the amount of suffering she went through to deliver it -- it's a big win.”
