Will Smith just appeared on Sway in the Morning, where the A-lister proved his memory isn’t spotty when it comes to his work with DJ Jazzy Jeff as The Fresh Prince. When the host prompted him to rap 1987’s “Brand New Funk,” he delivered his 33-year-old lines with a perfect cadence.
At first, Sway Calloway helped jog the multi-hyphenate artist’s memory by reciting the opening lines:
It’s new. It’s out of the ordinary
…
A literary genius and a superior beat creator
Have come together and we made a—
As soon as the beat dropped, the Bel-Air actor launched into his verse:
It was kind of an accident, the way that it happened
One day I was rappin, and on the beat, Jeff was backin’ me up
And all of a sudden, he brought in a cut
And I dropped my microphone and said, “What the…?
Hold up, Jeff, wait a minute, play it”
He just smiled and said, “Yeah def ain’t it?”
“Brand New Funk” was the lead single off 1988’s He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper, the first double album in hip-hop history as well as the first rap album to win a Grammy.
During his Sway showcase, Smith only paused for breath to make room for the absent ad-libs:
It was [funky] it made wanna [get, get down!]
And we knew almost at once it was the [brand new funk]
His original verse includes interjections taken from James Brown’s “My Thang.”
Then he ramped up his flow as he scaled down the rest of his lines:
So we continued to listen to it
And we knew it was def when I started rappin to it
So I gave a hi-five to Jeff
And without hesitation popped in my cassette
I took it home that night, and analyzed it
Rewound the tape over and over, and memorized it
That Friday, we went to the club
And out and out cold tore it up!
You shoulda seen the people dancin and shakin and movin and jumpin
And spinnin and clappin, while the beatbox was groovin
And screamin and yellin while on the microphone I was flowin
Fresh rhymes I was showin, the people say, “Yo keep goin”
So I continued to rock, while Jeff was on the beatbox
Special assistance from my homeboy Ready Rock
People fought just to get up front
To get a bird’s eye view of what we call the brand new funk
On January 9, “Big Willie” put on an even bigger throwback by rapping “The History of Will Smith” with Jimmy Fallon. The tag-team performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon looked back on his beginnings in Bel-Air, as Smith spit:
Rocked the house ‘til it turned to rubble,
Every time I told y’all “Girls Ain’t Nothing but Trouble”
Jeff’s the DJ, I’m the rapper
You can call him Jazz, you can call me Dapper
Then I was rappin’ just to make bus fare
Then I moved in with my auntie and uncle in Bel-Air
Then the duo took a trip down his filmography, pausing to pay homage to daughter Willow ’s 2010 single “Whip My Hair”:
Started out a Prince, then became the Fresh Papi
Cuz Trey is the Ace, Jaden’s a force
Willow came and told ya “Whip Your Hair Back and Forth”
During their interview segment, he reflected on his “nice little run”—but he recalled one role that he missed out on. “For me, Neo,” he said. “I had The Matrix first… Val Kilmer was gonna be Morpheus… But it was better this way. If I was Neo, Morpheus wouldn’t have been black.”
The nostalgia tour doesn’t stop there. Smith is returning to the Bad Boys franchise in Bad Boys for Life with Martin Lawrence. The Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah-directed movie will hit theaters on January 17.
Watch his performance above, and read all the lyrics to “Brand New Funk” on Genius now.
