Wednesday, Feb 2, 2022 • 1h, 11min

Will Smith

Questlove Supreme
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Questlove and Team Supreme present, a conversation with Will Smith. Thank you and you are welcome.
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Speakers
(5)
Questlove
Will Smith
Laiya
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Transcript
Verified
Break
01:41
Questlove Supreme
is a production of
iHeartRadio
.
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Questlove
01:50
Man, I better make this central special, right? Okay, ladies and gentlemen, everybody's searching for a hero. People need someone to look up to.
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01:58
You know, actually to be frank, our guest is a true hero. There's literally no human being on earth who has not heard of our guests. Like seriously, you don't even need to hear my voice anymore. But just for now these six, yes, we can go hip hop legend, the first hip hop
Grammy
winner, sitcom legend on one of the most beloved important family shows in tv history.
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02:28
A
Golden Globe
winner, yes.
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Questlove
02:30
Oh yeah, that's new! We're now skipping.
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02:35
You didn't think that that was on my... no, I'm playing. No, but seriously, like let's let's not take it lightly that he has been a premier action hero, one of the most, highest paid actors I believe, 17 of his films have grossed passed at least a combined $8 billion which is nothing to stop that. You know when I say this man has his own money, I mean he has his own money.
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03:01
No, seriously, I swear to God, I'll put it this way. Steve, you remember my infamous rat story.
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Suga Steve
03:11
The one I heard a 1000 times, yeah I think I can remember.
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Questlove
03:14
Right. So before, before you came in the picture, I will say even his foot, even the footnotes of his life become other people's highlights and I mean, he invited me to the
Millennial
back in 1999, December 31 something I'm sure he doesn't remember...
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Will Smith
03:31
I forgot about that, yes!
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Questlove
03:32
Right. Exactly.
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Will Smith
03:33
Bill Clinton
on the inauguration!
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Questlove
03:35
Do you know how many times I've told the story of
Mary Tyler Moore
running over
Liz Taylor's
wheelchair on my Jordans on my corns. That was my original rat story. Anyway, I can talk and talk talk talk about achievements until the cows come home.
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03:51
But literally what hit home for me personally was his his really brave, rigorous act of complete honesty and vulnerability, which is where you don't often hear, especially in the black community. And his book will, amongst other things that he's achieved.
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04:11
This intro is now 90 minutes long and the show is over. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome
Will Smith
Questlove Supreme
. Thank you.
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04:18
Yes!
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Will Smith
04:19
Yeah yeah yeah!
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Questlove
04:22
You're like... wait, have you set up lights in your apartment?
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Will Smith
04:26
Huh?
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Questlove
04:27
Where you set up fights right now?
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Will Smith
04:30
So here's the thing. Here's the thing. I took this interview seriously. Right?
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Questlove
04:35
No this is the cleanest Zoom display I've ever seen in my life.
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04:42
I feel very ashamed right now.
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Will Smith
04:44
I was like it's my man, you know, he asked me to, you know, to come on, it's Philly, It's all of that. It's like I got to make it you know, I don't know what he needs, what he wants to use. Like I want to be, I want to represent properly, I want to.
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Phonte
04:59
It's just audio bro, you could have been on the couch.
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Questlove
05:02
Anyway, so actually I wanna start off, and I'm gonna go against format and just sort of make this a free round for everyone on the show, all of us here. Hello, Team Supreme, by the way.
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05:20
Anyway, so I want to know, what did you do this morning?
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Will Smith
05:27
Me or
Team Supreme
?
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Questlove
05:29
No, you!
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Laiya
05:31
We don't care about us.
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Will Smith
05:31
I thought you said...
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Questlove
05:32
I'm just curious what your average warning is like nowadays.
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Will Smith
05:36
So I usually... I wake up about 4 AM. So like 4 to 6 AM is my private quiet time. Like no phone, no, nothing. I think I meditate. I read, it is like the my favorite time of the day. That there's very few days I'm not awake at four AM and 4 to 6 is how I, I get just centered and clear about what I'm gonna do in in the course of a day. And some days I'll go, I'll go back to sleep From 6 to 7:30 AM or something like that and start my day and some days if I'm energized I'll get on the treadmill at six and start my day.
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Questlove
06:30
See I already feel like I'm doing this wrong. No, because Grace told me like Grace's time is 5:00 AM. And that's the one I promise that I sort of like backtracked on, you know. Yes,
we'Ll
get up together at 5:00 AM we do yoga... And you know and then I went back to my normal 10 AM routine.
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Will Smith
06:54
But man, you can't underestimate the power of watching the sunrise. There's something that energizes a human body about seeing the sunrise. It like wakes you up with it. It's like you get in sync with like how the world is moving.
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Phonte
07:13
How long has that been a practice for you?
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Will Smith
07:16
Probably about three years it started happening. I'm not a big sleeper. I'm I rarely if ever sleep for - you know - five hours straight, you know? Yeah, rarely, rarely. I'll you know I'll sleep for four hours, up for a couple hours, and then sleep for three hours, three more hours like but very rarely will I sleep.... I never sleep eight, right? I'll sleep a combination of four up for a couple hours and then back before, but never eight hours straight.
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Questlove
07:52
Okay so can I ask you now, that's where that's where I have excelled in life. If you feel like you've slept eight hours or more. Do you feel like you wasted the day. And I know from reading your book, I know that for you the idea of hard work, performative hard work is like job one so letting the idea of that go.
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08:14
I'll
give an example this Saturday, I've never gotten up at two in the afternoon I slept for 15 hours. I've never, I've never slept for 15 hours ever. And I don't even feel tired. I just rolled my eyes and was like, "Wait, it's two in the afternoon, what the fuck?"
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08:31
And she let me sleep for 15 hours like for you is sleeping eight hours like, "Arrgh, that's that's a waste that I could have save the world in the last three hours".
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Will Smith
08:43
I used to, I used to feel like that. I used to feel like, you know, I didn't want to be sleep. I always felt like I was missing something. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, that was a
Quincy Jones
joint, you know, "Boy, you have enough time to sleep when you did". You know... So, so I prefer like I'll I take naps, right? You know, I'll lay down for, for 30 minutes at lunch, you know, and you know, get a, get a 30 and I'll be refreshed. The 30, 30-minute nap at lunch. I'm like really refreshed.
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09:19
But I don't like the feeling of sleeping all the way through in that way. But every couple of months I'll definitely get one of those 15 hour... like, you know, if you do that every couple of months, I'll get that full day where you just shut it down and return that sleep that, But the the, that that 4-6 practices a new thing. I wouldn't miss that for anything like that, up and the whole world belongs to me and it's private and it's quiet, it's like that's when I do my, my best thinking.
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Phonte
09:54
And you're still able to do that while you're taping movies and stuff too while you're shooting?
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Will Smith
09:58
Yeah. So usually with a movie, if, if I have an early cough, it works perfectly because I'm up a couple of hours before anyway and I'll just continue my day, and usually on those kind of days I'll sleep at lunch. I take a nap at lunch.
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Laiya
10:13
What does meditation look like to you? Because we talked about meditation a lot on this show. What does it mean to you?
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Will Smith
10:19
The big thing for me with meditation is no pressure. I don't pressure myself to do anything but just watch my mind, to just be aware of all of the things that are coming up, to just notice, "Damn, I hate meditating today", right? And I just kinda take the time to just notice what's going on with my mind. I don't wrestle with it. I let it, I let it do what it do baby.
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Suga Steve
10:46
Do you do trans meditation?
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Will Smith
10:48
No, I don't, I don't go that far. Like I, you know, I have, you know, you read the book. So you know, I've done
Ayahuasca
and things like that, which is, you know, it's a form that you know, for me that's a form of, of meditation.
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Laiya
11:04
I didn't read it. Wait, can you just tell me, don't spoil it like yeah...
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Questlove
11:07
I don't, I don't want you to spoil it?
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Laiya
11:09
Ayahuasca
I'm so curious.
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Questlove
11:11
I was gonna I was gonna tell you
Will
. I am... what I hit you the last time I was telling you that I was waiting for this very specific. I wanted my first
Ayahuasca
journey to be with this African couple that that does it. And a funny thing happened to them!
Share
11:32
Which is they were now like, "You know what's happening, this
Will Smith
book has just come out and suddenly we're in demand". So now I gotta... I love it.
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Laiya
11:48
Ayahuasca
peyote mushrooms. These are all family. Right?
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Will Smith
11:52
So
Ayahuasca
is really really different. So you know that the scene in
Black Panther
right?
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Phonte
12:01
Where he goes to an ancestral plane?
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Will Smith
12:04
Yeah the ancestral plane, right? So that's the African... that's taken from the African version of
Ayahuasca
,
Ibogaine
right? So it is as vivid as they depicted in the movie. You like actually go meet, see, talk to people you come back, right? Like that's the movie is not an exaggeration of what the experience is.
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Phonte
12:28
Wow!
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Will Smith
12:29
Right? The only, only thing that was was uh potentially a little bit of an exaggeration is the directing of the experience. The... it takes you where it wants to take you you don't get to like pick.
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Phonte
12:45
Yeah you have to surrender!
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Will Smith
12:46
At higher levels people can pick. Right? But yeah, I never got to pick, I got dragged, right? So...
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Phonte
12:53
What did they drag you into? Who did you get to talk to? Do you talk to any people from your past or whatever?
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Will Smith
12:59
My father came to me, you know, so that's what I was saying. So I had that experience, my father, he came to me and showed me where he was living. You know?
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Break
Questlove
15:12
I think the lightest version of it is, well, there's sound journeys you can take for some people to step up from that is sound journeys with mushrooms. Some people do
Ayahuasca
.
Mike Tyson
talks about uh doing toad, which is even more...
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Will Smith
15:29
Yeah, yeah.
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Questlove
15:30
Extreme. But basically it's almost like you should really be open. For me at least, and trying to heal like a lot of the childhood trauma. First of all, I mean, there's literally no human alive, especially black human that has not dealt with trauma, real trauma. And for I think for a lot of us, we sort of normalized the trauma.
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15:59
Like I normalized like, well yeah, your dad's supposed to beat your ass until you know, "I'm a good personalities. My dad beat my ass!" And it's only, it's really only until like maybe a year and a half ago where I just had to settle that. Yes. Even though my dad loved... that that was...
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Phonte
16:17
That was abusive.
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Questlove
16:19
The highest form, the highest form of abuse and really like damage. So I mean as a result, right?
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16:27
But that's the thing, like as black people, a lot of what we hold on to for how we were reared, it comes from slavery and that's sort of the one aspect that we can't let go, which for me, at least in reading
Will's
book, the reason why I say like the vulnerability and the honesty, it's really unprecedented, especially like I really want black people and I know like people are, you know, attracted to the fact that like, you know everything that's happened in the last year.
Share
16:59
So in
Will's
life that they're, they're coming here for that, like that dirt or whatever. And it's really not about that. It's about really coming to grips. You guys remember on past episodes where I told you about the laughing song, right? George Johnson.
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Phonte
17:16
Yeah.
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Questlove
17:17
How It just hit me that emotions were literally illegal for 300 years!
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Will Smith
17:26
Ya exactly.
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Questlove
17:26
You couldn't laugh and if you, you know the reason why they invented the terminology, "barrels of laughs" was because slaves were built a barrel full of water. So if you felt yourself about the last woman plantation instead of meeting the ira and the anger of the overseer, you would dunk your head in the water to suppress the sound.
Share
17:48
Same, same for anger. Who you assassin at, who you getting smart with, you better not cry before I give you something to cry about. Like all those things that we attribute to black parents, like all that ship came from slavery so we literally could not show emotions, it was illegal or else you faced lashes.
Share
18:06
And as a result I think the defensive thing that we invented like the same way we invented soul food out of the worst food ever black people invented cool, cool as a defensive mechanism. Like not showing, not showing emotions, not being too affected, holding back not we're from
Philly
, we should not drawing, you know what I mean?
Share
18:31
And as a result it's it's really damaged us. Like if you really think about the last black person that has started really on display of this vulnerability was the last 30 seconds if she's out of my life, like who would willing, who's willing to be that open about their life.
Share
18:49
And so for me, why did you feel as though, "now is the time". Because when I read this book, I was when I was relieved because someone went before, you know like in the three stooges where they do the army things like who's the first to volunteer and everyone steps backwards and leaves...
Share
19:06
Like seriously? Like everyone in my life is like, you know, we can't wait till you stop writing these bullshit as music books. And really... no, no, for real!
Share
19:18
It's like, you know, there are people like yo no more music books, like tell us some real shit about your life. And literally when
Will's
book came out, I felt like, okay, maybe it is safe to cross the street a little bit without getting run over. So why did you feel like now is the time to really share your story and to be as honest and open about it?
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Will Smith
19:46
Yeah, I think, um, I'm sure you all have been watching me publicly for the for the last...
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Phonte
19:53
30 years? I mean, come on.
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Will Smith
20:01
You know, I think first and foremost, I can feel the wave coming, right? So there's a consciousness shift that is happening right now, right? So, a couple of things are happening: more people are realizing that there is no happiness to be derived from any material conditions that you can put together, right?
Share
20:31
People are starting to realize that no matter how great your job is, no matter how great your family is, no matter... no matter how perfectly you cultivate your material conditions, they are unsustainable.
Share
20:52
You you have a perfect marriage and family and then there's a storm and three people in your family get killed when...
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Phonte
21:03
Or just
COVID.
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Will Smith
21:03
There COVID and shuts down...
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Phonte
21:06
And shut everything down.
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Will Smith
21:08
And shuts it down. People are realizing that material circumstances are unsustainable, right? So, if that's the case, if it's the case that I could lose anything, how can I possibly enjoy my time here? Right?
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21:27
And more people are waking up slowly to that idea and people are starting to realize that you are the only problem you have to solve, right? That your mind and how you are with this world is the answer, right? How to be with your circumstances is the answer, not trying to get your circumstances perfect, right?
Share
21:59
Okay. So, and I've this is this is the first time I've been asked this question this way. So I'm struggling to like to to to to say it, right? This is the first time you've been asked this question in in this way. So I've not like I've never been asked the question the answer I want to give. I'm trying to form it in my mind right now, right?
Share
22:20
So the the realization that I that I had is it doesn't matter so much what happens to me. It doesn't matter what happens in my life. It doesn't matter what happens with my family. It doesn't matter what happens with my career. Doesn't matter what happens in my life as much as it matters how I think about what happens to me and how I manage myself in interacting what happens to me, right?
Share
22:55
So the answer that I realized is you can't create loving interactions from unloving behavior. You can't, you can't, you can't, you can't! You're trying to love and be loved at the deepest part of your being. You want to love and be loved. You can not create it.
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23:29
If you're scared. If you're angry, if you're resentful, if you're hungry and craving, if you're holding any of those poisons in your heart, you can't create what you want. You can only create the opposite of what you want.
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Questlove
23:47
Alright, alright man, that's an earful.
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Will Smith
23:50
So all of that to say, I knew that if I was going to be happy, I couldn't be scared of what people were going to say. That I had to thoroughly and comfortably be me, just as I am with no funds given about what anybody thinks or means.
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Questlove
24:14
So being so to that point in terms of being you and then writing this book, how did you decide what to tell and what not to tell?
Share
24:23
You know what I'm saying and not necessarily in terms of being, having any shame about any parts of your life, but just as an artist having that line of saying, "Listen, these are some parts of myself that I choose to keep to myself and I have the right to own myself, you know, so as to not let these things define me". You know, how do you decide what would take me through the process of deciding how you wanted to tell your story?
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Will Smith
24:46
So the the the only thing I was prepared and still am prepared to say anything and everything that's true for me because I only get stronger by being vulnerable. I used to think I got weaker by being vulnerable. I only get stronger by being comfortable to share who and what I am freely. The line that I drew is I didn't want my words to be weaponized against people. I love.
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Questlove
25:19
100%.
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Will Smith
25:20
Okay. So I wanted to tell my story and the difficulty I was having was telling my story without telling
Jada
story.
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Questlove
25:33
Right, right.
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Will Smith
25:35
To, you know,
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Questlove
25:36
To tell the
Jeff
story.
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Will Smith
25:37
Yeah, without, you know, telling Alfonzo's story, or telling
Jeff's
story, you know? So what I did is when I finished the book, I had what I was calling a writer's camp and for two weeks I called everybody that I mentioned in the book down to
Miami
and I read every word of the book to all of the people in the book so they would know what I was saying about them and then I let them respond and made adjustments and and and things like that.
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Questlove
26:09
Everybody?
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Will Smith
26:10
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, it was...
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Questlove
26:12
Ready Rock C
?
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Will Smith
26:14
It was the first... well there were a couple of people who declined. There were a couple of people who declined. But it was the first time my mother and I had ever talked about my father being abusive. We literally... and I was 52 years old at the time and my mother and I literally never talked about the fact that my father beat her up. And her hearing me read the chapter was the first time that the conversation came up between us.
Share
26:51
And you know, it was it was gut wrenching, but it was deeply purifying. And you know, when I was talking about that idea of blocks to love, it's like the fact that my mother and I couldn't talk about that, there was a barrier between us, right? And we loved each other, but we weren't really connecting in honesty and authenticity, right? So there's always a little bit of a facade because we both know, we're just not going to talk about it.
Share
27:24
So it just creates a little bit of a barrier and neither one of us wants that we want to love each other wide open and vulnerably, you know, so for me it was cleaning out all of the barriers and the blocks that I had to loving the people in my life. You know, and it's and it's those traumas make us close our hearts, you know, the worst crime you can commit against another human being is to assassinate them in your heart.
Share
27:56
And you know, once your heart is close to somebody as nice as you think you're being as cordial as you pretend to be. "All I said was..." Yeah, right. But you said it with a closed heart, which the person understands clearly that you don't give a funk about them, right? And it's like you can't hide it, right? It's...
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Questlove
28:25
Because you're not you're not showing that you're open to seeing them in a different way.
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Will Smith
28:28
Right.
You'Ll
be surprised how much your heart is closed to people you say you love, right? And it's like they know it and they can feel it and sometimes we can't feel it, we think if we treat someone nicely and respectfully that were being loving, but if your heart is close to them, it's not behind every word is "I really don't give a fuck".
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Laiya
28:58
And they hear.
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Will Smith
28:59
And they hear, right, They hear it no matter what you try to say. And no matter how much you try to cover it up.
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Break
Questlove
30:40
Alright, so let me ask you something because I'm... This is the one, this is probably my major downfall and the journey I'm in right now, like I'm literally, I'm amazed with my eyes with blinders on and if I could just figure out this one thing, I think the world opens. But when I tell you, I literally... Now there's there's a book I just discovered like maybe last week called I think it's called The Big Step where that the author speaks of how we set limitations for ourselves and for me though, I am trying to figure out and the problem is I'm trying to figure it out how to open my heart.
Share
31:32
And this is stuff I kind of shared on the show before. But yeah, you know, like when you, when you live, I feel like when you live in "fight or flight" mode. That you can either go with your brain or your heart and I found that it was way safer for me to go with my brain.
Share
31:50
Like I gotta be the smartest guy, I gotta be the most achieving guy. I gotta be the provider, I got to be, you know, the hero that everyone and I'm currently in a situation now where I'm hitting a brick wall. Because I'm almost like the tin man, like I technically, I don't know the first steps and how to open my heart.
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Will Smith
32:16
So the fundamental premise is flawed. The fundamental premise that you're safer using your head is wrong. That's not true, right? So you can only make an intellectual mess with that fundamental premise, right? So going all the way back to the beginning, the belief system that has to grow is that the only safety is in you're well-wishing and the authentic care and concern for whoever's in front of you, you see a samurai kill somebody and then pray over the body.
Share
33:08
The samurai. It's not like, you know, "Fuck him", you know, "That motherfucker shouldn't have been tripping". Right? It's like the samurai is prepared to kill, you know, that that's what they do. But they spend half their lives learning, you know, the techniques of killed for the purpose of defending people and then they spend the second half of their life learning how to not have to you absolutely positively want to be able to defend people and you want to be able to build and you want to be able to create and you want to do all of that.
Share
33:43
If you're doing it with your heart closed, if you're doing it where you don't give a fuck about people, it can't go well and you and you have all the money and you can do all that.
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Phonte
33:58
People are your greatest resource.
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Questlove
33:59
It's like...
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Phonte
34:01
People are your greatest resource.
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Will Smith
34:03
When people know that you care, right? They give you so much room to make mistakes and stuff like that. And your only responsibility is for people to be able to see in your eyes that you legitimately care and you might have to make hard decisions.
Share
34:24
You know? and somebody's mind might be so defiled that they can't respond well. And you got to go samurai, right? But you don't do it joyfully. You hate that you had to, you know, cut that, you're right. You know what I mean? All right?
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Questlove
34:44
So let me let me ask you a question because for me, like I put myself in almost every situation that you spoke about in the book. But there's one particular situation that I felt that you handled with ease that I otherwise would have handled. Now, only starting maybe three years ago, really not even three years ago, like two years ago, I finally decided to do something on my own without, you know, the collaborative narrative that I do, you know everything I've done has been the collaborative with everything.
Share
35:19
So I'm thinking that if I'm getting a phone call in
Detroit
and it's
Quincy Jones
telling me to come out to his birthday party and you're asked to audition in front of all those people at his birthday party.
Share
35:37
And he happens to have your current lawyer still with you. Now I believe like to, you know, draw up the papers and make this show happen.
Share
35:49
I would have instantly not only thought of millions of reasons to say "no". Chances are, I'm like, thank you very much, but you know, I, you know, I have something, I'm going back to
Detroit
to go back to my group and stay with my group and I wouldn't have even gotten the fresh Prince of bel air because I would have instantly out of obligation chosen that first step in my career, which is just the group.
Share
36:19
And so, how did and you don't know if you just glossed over or whatever, but did you realize that that was the first paradigm shift that your life is not going to be the same? Like once you stepped on that airplane and went back to
Detroit
, how do you explain to
Jeff
and you know, how do you explain to these people that You made it a life-changing decision? And of course it's 24 hours?
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Will Smith
36:52
Well, we were, we were, we were in a really desperate financial situation, right? So like we, we were, you know, we had gone from
Grammy
winners back to one hotel room.
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Questlove
37:05
By the way, I hate, I really hate how you sort of, separate yourself from
And In This Corner
, which is my favorite record.
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Will Smith
37:14
I'm sorry.
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Questlove
37:16
That's so crazy.
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Will Smith
37:18
That's crazy. But yeah, that, that one that one hurt bad.
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Questlove
37:23
No, I'm not jiving you. Like, I feel like, and then she bit me, it was like, that's one of my favorite Halloween songs ever. But I like, and
Jeff
was on the Beatbox I did with that one.
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Will Smith
37:37
Anyway, there was one or two, unfortunately the public did not concur.
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Questlove
37:45
But it worked out for you because if Quincy and Benny don't see that performance of
Mike Tyson
on Arsenio. So that album still holds heavy for you, because that's the moment that changed, you know?
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Will Smith
38:02
When I, when I look back at it, I can see, I can see the value, definitely when I, when I look back, but to the first question about, so for me, I've never been the kind of person that felt like I had to stay with my friends to be loyal.
Share
38:22
I felt like my loyalty was to their growth and expansion. My loyalty was, y'all gotta keep up. Yeah. You know, it's like, no, no, no. It's like, yeah. What, what, what, what was Robin Harris had a joke? What was it? What was it? "You talking about? Robin? Robin, when you get rich and famous? You're gonna change your goddamn right". I'm going to motherfucker's
Share
Laiya
38:54
Ain't gonna have no change, change.
Share
Will Smith
38:58
But the idea, the idea is for me, it's like we gotta climb. None of us loved our childhoods, none of us loved what our current situations were at the time, then if that's the case we gotta climb, we gotta grind, right? And it was always painful for me when somebody couldn't keep up.
Share
39:22
But I would much rather keep going and send them some help than slow down and let them pull us all down. Right? Right. So, I've always felt like a responsibility to my, to my squad.
Share
Questlove
39:39
But we gotta we gotta go, right? We gotta climb, right? And for me at that time that that meant no drugs, everybody gotta train. If you want to do something different, you can you just can't do it here, because like, we are a crew of dreamers, and we want to see how close to the sun we can get, you know. So, and that mentality, you know, you know, Charlie Mack.
Share
Laiya
40:06
It was so good to see you, Charlie and
Jeff
had that I. G. conversation
mid-COVID
, it's funny I was about to say this, but I kind of did call Charlie and get some cheating things before we did this conversation. But I wanted you to speak on that friendship between y'all three men because really that was kind of like the greatest way to see the three of you. I don't think it was like no other interview, no big, you know, networks all three just busted. Come on. And for the people.
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Will Smith
40:36
You know, we talked about that in the I. G. live and I talked about it a little bit in the book. It's like, Charlie is a dreamer, Charlie is a big giant dreamer, right? You know,
Jeff
is of a little more cocooned, right? Like
Jeff
wants his spot and if everybody agrees to go,
Jeff
is gonna go, right?
Share
41:05
But
Jeff
climbs in another way.
Jeff
climbs with talent. He spends, you know, 16 hours a day behind his turntable. So his climbing was in a different way. And you know,
JL
who is my manager is like one of the most well-read people that I've ever met.
Share
41:28
We gravitated to each other, you know, growing up in Philly and it was like we were doing the stuff the that everybody else was doing and we was getting into trouble and everybody else was getting into. But we all kinda had our eyes on a different, a different future for ourselves, we all knew we were doing more than this. And you know, your your friends are critical. It's like one bad friend can blow your whole ship in one night.
Share
Laiya
42:02
Your will one time you gave a speech, I never will forget this um shout out to your baby sister Allen, who's great woman. I came to a party you threw for when the Beckhams came to L. A. For the first time and you gave a speech about friendship and why it's so important to be meticulous about friends. Can you just people need to hear that for a second cause it ain't just the rich and famous everybody.
Share
Will Smith
42:28
You know, there's a couple of quotes I've heard around that and it's, it's attributed to
Confucius
. He says, "Look, at the five people you spend the most time with and that's who you are".
Share
Phonte
42:42
That's who you are. Show me who you with.
I'll
show you who you are, right?
Share
Will Smith
42:46
And you know, I heard that it was probably 18 the first time I heard that and I was like, "oh". And it was like, "okay, well if that's if that's the case, then I want this one, two, three..." You know, but it's like who your friends are is, you know, one of the most critical decisions, you know, especially as a teenager, that's one of the most critical decisions that you can make if the five friends that you associate with are straight A students, you're probably going to learn how to be a straight A student.
Share
43:23
If the five friends you associate with carry guns and sell drugs, you're probably gonna end up carrying a gun and selling drugs, right? So it's like, you know, human beings are creatures of example and we fall into those lines of who we're with. Who you lay down with, who you're, who you share that bed with is probably the most important decision
Share
Questlove
43:55
You will ever make in your life.
Share
Will Smith
43:56
Ever make... You know what I mean? Listen, right? So it's like choosing your friends and your closest associates is how you fertilize your dreams, right? You can't have a life that's better than your associations, like it's impossible. Your life is a team effort, right? So you can't have a better life than your team.
Share
Break
Questlove
46:33
I gotta admit when, when I finished the book, that part of me felt not quasi deflated, but the fact that I made a decision, I made a decision like maybe two years ago that, "Okay, I'm really gonna concentrate and get my thing together, I'm gonna direct this movie and then go higher and higher and achieve and achieve and learn and achieve and achieve".
Share
47:00
And then you know, you told the last six chapters, you know, it's a doozy of the book again, no spoiler alerts, but you know something happens in September of 2011, that sort of changes the whole trajectory of of of your life and whatnot. And when I read that you had to take, you know like you have to take in a total assessment of everything that you were and it wasn't about how much you made and how much you know how many records you broke or whatnot and you kind of have to start all over again, like what I know that that level of achievement and that level of fame can be somewhat addicting.
Share
Will Smith
47:44
Right.
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Questlove
47:45
So now in 2021, 10 years after the fact that you have that there there's a story you tell
about Jada's
40th birthday party in which I kind of feel that's your paradigm shift to lead you to where you are right now?
Share
48:01
Well for starters, it's almost like what are your life goals right now? Because when everything else, well, more than that, more than that, I think he discovered that none of that matters. And to me, I actually felt like, "Oh shit, wait a minute. Like I'm trying to win this Oscar so I could do more movies and get more power and get more power and get more money and get more power, more money".
Share
48:26
And then I realized, "Man, this that's not gonna make me happy". Because this book is basically like a cheat sheet of you know, him five years into where I want to be, right?
Share
48:41
So, for you now, like, what is important because... I know you're not saying throw the baby out with the bathwater. Like, "Forget my achievements. Forget my career".
Share
Will Smith
48:50
Not at all.
Share
Questlove
48:51
But what's what's the priority now?
Share
Will Smith
48:54
So, what what happened is all of my climbing and all of my achieving and everything that I was trying to build is, I was trying to fill an internal hole with external achievements, right? And it's impossible, right? You can't make enough money, you can't have enough sex, you know, you can't um win enough championships that to fill a traumatic void inside yourself and my traumatic void...
Share
Questlove
49:33
So, you're saying that internally at one point, you felt like, Well, shoot I made 8.5 billion in movies, like I should have did 20!
Share
Will Smith
49:42
You're right and that's so that's the carrot on the stick. That with there, there is no end to achieving. There's no end. It's an infinite, there's an infinite amount of money and beautiful women and yachts and... Right, you know, so what I realized is that what I was trying to fill is at the end of the day, I didn't like me, right? So at the end of the day, I didn't feel good about me and I needed those things so I could feel good about me, right?
Share
50:29
And all the way back to being a little boy in chapter one is you know, watching my father beat up my mother and I didn't do anything really got me. It really like it really damaged something inside of me.
Share
50:46
You know the the opening line of the book, you know that that I talked about, I've always felt like a coward, right? And people would, "Look well dude, you did this and you did that and you did this and all that!" And none of the external stuff fixes your internal impression of yourself.
Share
Phonte
51:09
That initial wound.
Share
Will Smith
51:10
That initial wound, right? So the journey for me came down to, well if I don't have all of those things like who am I If people don't clap with my movie. If people don't cheer when I walk in, what if people booed when I walked in. Would that change who I am, right?
Share
51:33
And I realized that I had given away my self-esteem is supposed to be self-esteem, but I had given away my self-esteem to achievements and to what my woman feels about me, to how other people view me and what they say about me. And I had trapped myself in trying to uphold an image of who I was rather than being who I really was. I wasn't comfortable being who I really was because I felt like the world would punish me for that.
Share
52:11
You end up acting in real life! You're just pretending you're just pretending all the time, right? So one of the things for me, every time I've walked out on
The Tonight Show
and I hear y'all playing. Invariably I have a little bit of a little boy insecurity because
The Roots
are the real
Philly
group.
Share
Questlove
52:38
Wait, really?
Share
Will Smith
52:39
The Roots
for real, for real
Philly
dude.
Share
Questlove
52:45
No, don't say this will because literally no, no, no, no, no. This is what I have to say, literally when I'm in any situation that's fearful lately, it's been giving speeches, I hate giving speeches. And the moment the thing that I think about, you're literally the most confident curtain walker of
The Tonight Show
that like literally when you like I know this, I know who looks down there are people that run to the couch because they're so insecure that people look down like.
Share
53:24
You're the first person I know that takes a second to walk out. You come out like, you know, like you're, you're in room in the Colosseum, like you're ready to conquer. So literally when I get to my small space before, before I get any speech whatsoever, I think I literally had to vicariously do a "what
Will Smith
".
Share
53:47
So please don't even tell me that someone has to like push you...
Share
Will Smith
53:54
Every time I've ever walked out on that show and I hear y'all playing, I cannot do anything but get myself together to try to look cool for
The Roots
.
Share
Questlove
54:06
So you're psyching yourself up!
Share
54:12
Literally, we're literally...
Share
Will Smith
54:15
You always in your poker face, right? So I'm looking at you, I'm looking at you trying to get to like, and you know, you give me the nod and you're right there and I was like, it's a poker face, he's doing the poker face. I can't. That was the worst one of all was remember the one where I did like the five entrances?
Share
Questlove
54:33
Yes, that's my favorite of all time!
Share
Will Smith
54:35
All I could think was you thought I was the corniest motherfucker that has ever walked out on the show?
Share
Questlove
54:43
This is so funny because in my mind, in my mind, I literally all right. So just just a recap for everyone, there was a period after, if you remember the
Michele Bachmann
incident, where suddenly they understand that oh,
The Roots
customized walk horns for people. Suddenly people wanted to do these epic as walk horns, like literally
Will Smith
and
Steve Martin
all their walk on our very epic.
Share
55:13
Now that's funny because I felt unworthy. Like when you walk out, I felt like, man, we're just the minions from
West Philly
, that isn't, you know, on his level.
Share
Laiya
55:25
Wait, can we stop for a moment real quick? Because well, how does it feel? You kind of started this wave, I mean outside of Philadelphia international gamble, but this huge wave of like
Philly
talent. What does it look like? Fast forward to? Not just see
The Roots
, right? But to see
Kevin Hart
as like,
Philly
is like killing it. What does it feel like to be like the kind of daddy of all of this, you know?
Share
Will Smith
55:50
And it's so funny because like, and this is why working on your mind is the only work to do, right?
Share
Questlove
55:59
We need to talk more!
Share
Will Smith
55:60
Right? So for me, I perceived myself as an outcast from that group, right? That it was right? So to me, ai hey, I was the real
Philly
dude, but he wasn't, he wasn't from
Philly
, but he was holding it down of wrapping for
Philly
.
Amir
is the look of wrapping for
Philly
from
Philly
, right?
Share
Phonte
56:32
Yes, but you know what, I will say this, I will, I will, I will interject as a
non-Philly
person as an outside perspective to give you a little context on that. Well, I think for you, you just became too like you just became to embody, like so much other things like you became bigger than
Philly
, you became bigger than, you know what I'm saying, that the
United States
, like you just became
Will Smith
.
Share
56:56
It was not though, this is Will from
Philly
, it's just know this is
Will Smith
. So I think, and maybe from the standpoint of, you know, maybe you may not didn't see that you were getting that love and so it's like, like you said, the cool factor, quote unquote, that
Amir
might have had, or a I might have had, I just think you were just in a whole nother stratosphere.
Share
57:16
And people fuck with you. I mean we all because even now when I have conversations about your career and stuff, I'm like, bro,
Independence Day
and all that shit aside,
He's The DJ, I'm The Rapper
, that is a classic hip hop album, like, this shit got a legit classic under his belt, Like, don't get it sucked up, and I always wonder did you ever feel that you weren't respected as an emcee? You know what I'm saying? Once you went so crazy and movies and your career really took off?
Share
Questlove
57:44
Wait, let me add on to that and let you answer, will I just want to let you know that I was one of those listeners, you and
Jeff
had went to DAS the night that
He's The DJ, I'm The Rapper
came out and you had a battle with
Steady B
.
Share
Will Smith
58:00
Steady B
!
Share
Phonte
58:02
Man.
Share
Questlove
58:03
Listen
Tariq
and I heard that "munchie cheat" line, I don't know if it was freestyle, whatever, but like that's the first time I heard someone like play the dozens and rhyme at the same time.
Share
Will Smith
58:18
Yeah yeah yeah.
Share
Questlove
58:19
And he called steady be like, you big monkey cheat and that, that moment was the first bonding that
Tariq
and I ever had like, we called each other like, "Did you hear that he called him a munchy cheese?"
Share
58:33
Like it was, it was all over school the next day, like afternoon, it was almost like you could do no wrong like, so there was never a thing like that boy, corny whatever, like literally that battle, I wish I had that on tape.
Share
Phonte
58:51
Yeah, yeah. Do you feel you get those respect that respect as Emcee?
Share
Will Smith
58:55
More now than during, during that time? I feel like when people look back with with a little bit of history, people being, you know, that was kind of, that was kind of interesting. Yeah, he, he wasn't half bad. What it was is
Jeff
and
Ready Rock
would body anybody.
Share
59:14
So that's really so I was in between
Jeff
and
Ready Rock
. So, I felt supported in that way, like nobody could be
Jeff
right and what
Ready Rock
was doing was just, you know, he was one of one right in in in terms of Beatbox. So there was like, nobody really even to battle him.
Share
Questlove
59:35
So I always felt like as a crew we would win, like if people wanted to go ahead up, I felt like as a crew we would win. But I never felt like because the acting came in so quick, I felt like I never developed the level of um rhyme skill that I felt like I could if I had had to stay in it, stay in it, you know, and it's like and then then I got scared, so I was trying to make hit records instead of making what I was feeling right. So I got, I got twisted in there in a way that jammed me up.
Share
Laiya
01:00:17
But Charlie said that nobody was there, not even trying to battle you on the streets because you was killing it so hard and then not to mention the battling lyrically, but then when he came to fisticuffs, you wasn't a game neither.
Share
Will Smith
01:00:27
That's not, no, that was a lesson, I had to, I had to learn how to fight quick. So you know, that was, that was the one thing that was always a surprise to people, it's like, I had so much, you know, anger and resentment build-up, I would sucker punch somebody quit, right? So I'd like, I was like, just fight me then, fight me then, right?
Share
Laiya
01:00:51
I think they know they have no idea.
Share
Break
Laiya
01:02:02
Can I ask a random, Westbrook, quick question please? Because I know we were getting tight with time, but you got a couple of my favorite shows that's either coming on, on right now? No, I just wanted to throw it out real quick.
Share
Questlove
01:02:14
I forgot about
Will Smith
the business. This is, I mean, I'm trying to get life advice.
Share
Laiya
01:02:19
I wanted to start with the most random of random, which is
Cobra Kai...
Share
Phonte
01:02:23
Because hey listen, let me tell you something, let me tell you something.
Share
Questlove
01:02:26
Okay, hey, let me tell you something man. Look
Cobra Kai
bro. Even without them to stop man, listen, when whole boy when he went to that drawer and he pulled out that goddamn top his ponytail and listen. When homer pulled that scrunchie out, when he pulled out the hair tie said boy let's go, let's go,
Terry Silver
is back. Bro, me and my wife.
Share
01:02:49
No, I'm not giving no spoilers. I mean he's in the trailer. Like no season four was the best one.
Share
Will Smith
01:02:54
Caleeb Pinkett, my brother-in-law brought that in. Yeah, yeah, so Caleeb is, you know, I trained him for about five years and now he started his own company, he's producing. So he brought in uh
Cobra Kai
to the to the family. So yeah, that he's uh they just got nominated, they got nominated for a sag awards last night, Cobra Kai is nominated...
Share
Laiya
01:03:25
And eighties babies dreams come true.
Share
Will Smith
01:03:27
Oh my God ya.
Share
Questlove
01:03:28
Man, that show is fucking great, I loved that show.
Share
Will Smith
01:03:32
Because Caleeb brought it in, I was like,
Cobra Kai
in the karate kid, right? Because you know, we had done the karate kid with Jaden. We were already working with the IP. I was wondering...
Share
Questlove
01:03:42
Are we gonna get Jade in future seasons of
Cobra Kai
, can we get one?
Share
Will Smith
01:03:50
That's a great idea.
Share
Laiya
01:03:51
That's a good question.
Share
Questlove
01:04:01
That's right.
Share
Laiya
01:04:02
Wait, the world...
Share
Will Smith
01:04:05
Welcome To Earth
.
Share
Laiya
01:04:06
Welcome to just finished all the episodes. Bravo bravo bravo. First of all, can you break down to the world how
National Geographic
makes that ship look like that? Because I know you had to be in. Me and my boyfriend were like, what in the Go Pro do they do?
Share
Questlove
01:04:23
How do you know listen, it looks gorgeous. You know, there's a company called
Utopia
that
Westbrook
we partnered with and you know, it's just not joe knows how to do it. It's like, you know, there they're getting us into some really beautiful places. Some places that are untapped. It was like that the and they just know how to shoot it. I don't even know what they're doing.
Share
Laiya
01:04:53
And I have your honestly I love because we can see your fear. So when you circle back on the fear episode and I was like.
Share
Questlove
01:04:60
Yeah I was gonna say, have they presented you something that you were like, "I'm not ready this season? Like maybe next".
Share
Will Smith
01:05:06
Yeah, there's one there's one that we pushed to next year. It was um a trek to the South Pole And it takes nine days and it's tense, tense all the way for nine days to the South Pole.
Share
Laiya
01:05:22
And I was gonna pick you up for having so many explorers of color.
Share
Will Smith
01:05:26
Yes. Yes, exactly. But and you know what? That's I'm gonna shout out
Nat Geo
and, and uh Utopia. You know that that is a part of their demand for the show. They like they are specifically mandating that the all of the episodes be representative. So yeah, they are the truth.
Share
Laiya
01:05:50
And the Balair...
Share
Phonte
01:05:50
And the Balair people...
Share
Will Smith
01:05:51
Bailar... it's about to be crazy
Share
Questlove
01:05:56
As, as evidenced by, even though, you know, the globes have been blacked out.
Share
Will Smith
01:06:05
Yeah.
Share
Questlove
01:06:06
Are you ready with your acceptance speech for the
Oscars
?
Share
Will Smith
01:06:12
Hey man, you can't, you're not supposed to talk about that kind of stuff. I was talking I was talking earlier about that. Oh, for another thing we had the
Women Of The Movement
.
Share
01:06:23
Women Of The Movement
. We have that. Yeah. But that, yeah, that's uh, with
Jay-Z
produced that with J. Yeah. So that, that's coming out too. But I was just talking about the, you know, the idea of uh... I'm trying to be spiritually above the, the desire to win awards.
Share
Questlove
01:06:44
I get it. But I told you, but I told you I predicted.
Share
Will Smith
01:06:53
You did.
Share
Questlove
01:06:54
I believe that
Beyonce
is gonna win that night. I believe that you're gonna win.
Share
Will Smith
01:06:58
Love it.
Share
01:07:00
And I won't say no if they call my name, I won't be like, "Nah".
Share
Laiya
01:07:07
I believe it don't matter because the people love you and that's what counts first. So there you go.
Share
Phonte
01:07:10
There you go.
Share
Will Smith
01:07:11
I love me. Which is the new thing that I've gotten too. It's like I feel good about me with or without an
Academy Award
.
Share
Questlove
01:07:20
One thing I want to ask you well, um that I think would be helpful for a lot of people. When you talk about just your journey of just, you know, growing and you know, kind of, you know, learning to love yourself and be happy and everything, you know, a lot of people can look and say, well, well that's easy and you made, I am legend. I mean, you know what I mean? Right?
Share
01:07:39
You know what I'm saying? You got a team, you got therapist, you've got chefs, you've got accounts that you got all that. So to someone that's you know, not in your position, what would you say? It's just that taking what is step one of wanting to just be better and have a healthier relationship with yourself. What a step one. Regardless of money. Whatever. What's the first step you can take?
Share
Will Smith
01:07:60
I think the first thing is to take an honest look at your life and how much of it do you like? Right? Just take a really good look at your life, right? Because it is a journey. You do have to make a journey and the journey is from, you know, unpleasant and unwanted circumstances to circumstances that you desire, right? And all the learning that you will have to do will be on your journey, right? So the first thing is to commit to transformation, right?
Share
01:08:46
There's no easy road, there's no easy road. You're going to have a therapist, you want, whatever the work is still yours, the work is yours and the work can be done in any circumstance.
Share
01:09:01
There's like, you know, my grandmother used to say "God is everywhere", right? So you can find it anywhere. You just have to commit to transforming your life first and foremost, you have to decide, "You know what I'm done and I'm making a change". And the first changes are always going to be really obvious, right?
Share
01:09:24
The first changes of how you eat or who you associate with or a job you're doing that makes your fucking stomach hurt, right? You know what I mean? It's like the first couple of changes are gonna be really, really obvious and it's the courage to make the first change, right?