Will Smith Is Finding Self-Discovery Through Music: “A More Honest Place for Me”

Will Smith’s return to music is a personal journey.

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At the Grammy Museum for An Evening With Will Smith on Thursday — before the multihyphenate performed his hit songs “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” and “Miami” — he shared with audience members how the process of turning his pain into music has been the ultimate inspiration for the new musical pivot in his career.

“Music is a more honest place for me where I feel like I can say things that I wouldn’t say, and I can express things, and there’s uncertainty and there’s sadness,” he said. “The two things I would never let myself publicly be is sad or mad. Now I’m just starting to be more honest with myself — I have a lot of fun in life, but I’m sad sometimes and I can get mad sometimes.”

The process of self-discovery and the journey through self-acceptance meant allowing himself to feel those negative feelings, and finding strength in vulnerability.

“I absolutely have a warrior’s heart but with a warrior’s heart, the greatest thing you can do is surrender to reality, you surrender into the difficulty,” he explained. “As important as the successes and wins, I want everybody to see that I’m not different in that way.”

Difficulties Smith faced included at the infamous moment at the 2022 Oscars, where he walked on stage and slapped presenter Chris Rock after the comedian made a comment about wife Jada Pinkett Smith. The release of Bad Boys: Ride or Die this summer marked his big-budget comeback .

During the conversation, the star said, “For years I’ve done really deep-dive soul searching, more than almost any point in my life, and I’ve found a new well. There’s a well of authenticity that I’m trying to tap into, the most honest and authentic space within me.”

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While in 1989 Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff won the very first hip-hop Grammy for best rap performance, the space he’s in now has led the star to explore another genre — gospel — with songs like “You Can Make It” and “Work of Art,” which he also performed at the event.

“I don’t really fit in those [genre] boxes,” Smith said. “I wasn’t thinking of it as I’m going to try to make a gospel record. I made a song that resonated with the emotional experience that I had in childhood in church. The ideas were leaning a little more into the spiritual lane… It’s still one story”

As the star gets the chance to tell his story in a new way for the first time since his 2017 release “Get Lit,” the father of three is now working closely with his family on his new music.

“In the house working on music and everyone creating together and listening to each other’s music, it’s a new time. I’m discovering that as a parent, because I’m continuing to push and I’m continuing to work on myself, my children are gravitating toward me more,” Smith said.

He continued, “I’m noticing that the struggles that I have, the difficulties that I overcome, the things that I learn because I’m not stopping, my children are not moving away from me… Another big part of working on the music and working to understand myself and understand life more deeply, I feel like I’m becoming a valuable elder.”

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