During an interview promoting his new movie Bad Boys: Ride or Die, Will Smith reflected on how the theme song to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reflected came together.
Joined by his co-star Martin Lawrence, the actor and former rapper was asked about the iconic theme song by host Peter Rosenberg. "So, Quincy Jones was the producer of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air... he was mentoring me," shared Smith around the 20:30 point of the interview, seen above. "So we're getting the show and everything, and Quincy had done a theme song for Fresh Prince. So he plays the theme song... and you know it was that old-school... [mimics a playful and bouncy sitcom theme]."
When Smith heard the theme song, he didn't say anything to Jones but later went to go-to producer DJ Jazzy Jeff to express his concern. "Jeff was at the hotel and I was like, 'Jeff, Quincy played a theme song... Dude, it's no good at all,'" he continued. "Jeff was like, 'Just tell him, man, he'll understand.' I was like, 'There ain't no way I'm telling Quincy Jones.' ... Quincy knows better than I know, so I went to my room and like four hours later, Jeff hit me and played the music for the theme song."
When he heard what Jeff had cooked up, he instantly thought it was "a little bit better," and was encouraged to write something along to the beat. "So I wrote that theme song that night in the hotel room with Jeff," he said. "We wrote it, we recorded it, he had a four track... He was like, 'Just play it for Quincy.'" In response, Smith just groaned, because he dreaded telling Quincy Jones, of all people, that he believed he had made a better theme song than he did.
"I played it for Quincy and he sat there and he listened... I'm shaking and sweating, and he said, 'Well that's better than that bullshit I did.' He said, 'That's the theme song.' He took it and Quincy did the edit. So he just made the short version of it." The full version of the song has a second verse, which isn't included in the intro to the classic sitcom.
Check out the full interview up top.
