In a sit-down with David Letterman for the new season of his Netflix series, 'My Next Guest Needs No Introduction,' Will Smith admitted that he always hated being called a 'soft' rapper.
The star’s easy charm is on full display in the interview, in which he jokes about wanting to snatch Letterman’s stylish shoes, ribs the host about his description of scratching as “manipulating” the needle on the record and laughs off an off-camera request to adjust his askew shirt.
And though Smith said he never faced any pressure to quit music over the duo’s tepid reputation in an era that saw the rise of both conscious and gangsta rap from the likes of Public Enemy and N.W.A, he said, “Not pressure as much as it was always that I was soft. I hated that, being called soft.” Part of the reason for that reputation was what Smith said was a conscious choice to avoid cursing in his music, a result of some sage advice from his gran when he was 12-years-old.
“Dear Willard, truly intelligent people do not have to use words like these to express themselves. Please show the world that you’re as smart as we think you are. Love, Gigi,” she wrote after finding one of his rap lyric notebooks that had some four-letter rhymes in it, which, admittedly, weren’t even filled with very good or nimble curses. “That was the reason I never cursed in any of my records.
He said the trip changed his feelings about fame and success. And I’m, like, trying to grab at my money and my career and my whole life is getting destroyed. “When I came out of it, I realized that anything that happens in my life, I can handle it,” he said. “I can handle any person I lose, I can handle anything that goes wrong in my life, I can handle anything in my marriage. I can handle anything that this life has to offer me.
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