It took 15 minutes for Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff to make it. It’s as tight a theme song as has ever existed. The short version (which is the version that accompanied the show for basically the entire stretch of its six-season run) is just barely over a minute long, but by the end of it you know: who Will Smith is where Will Smith is from what Will Smith’s nickname is what type of person Will Smith is (happy and open-minded) what sort of hobbies Will Smith had as a child his ideology, so far as it pertains to chilling out, maxing, and relaxing all cool what sort of mother Will Smith had (protective and loving so much so that she was willing to send her only child across the country for a chance at a more prosperous life) what sort of interpersonal skills Will Smith had with strangers what kind of traveler Will Smith was (light he reset his entire life 2,730 miles to the west and all he needed was one suitcase) and what sort of extended family Will Smith had (loving). An amalgam of words and sounds and images that feel less like words and sounds and images and more like a red carpet pointing you toward some very potent and personal nostalgia.Īs a storytelling device, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song is unimpeachable. You can even see the swirl move thing Will does with his head after he knocks on the door. And you can see Will being picked up and helicoptered around Will’s mom telling him he’s moving to Bel-Air the taxi with the “FRESH” license plate the highstep move Will does when he heads toward the Bel-Air mansion. And you can see the errant shot ricochet off onto the one guy’s head. You can picture the lazy double-team the defenders tried to trap Will with on the basketball court. And you can see the cartoonish police officer admonishing Will for spray-painting on the wall. You can see the chair spinning in front of the graffiti’d backdrop. You can hear Will Smith, with that perfectly temperatured and welcoming voice of his, unrolling the words for you at precisely the right speed. If I type out the words “NoYou can hear the keys that’ll come in later. There’s no part that I have to set up or explain or provide context for. It’s very easy to do because, I mean, everybody knows it. Writing about the theme song from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is very easy to do-and also very hard to do.
This is a story all about how pop culture got flipped, turned upside down. To mark the occasion, The Ringer is looking back on the legacy of the original series and the influence of the star who defined it, Will Smith. This Sunday, Peacock will premiere the first episode of Bel-Air, a contemporary, dramatic reimagining of the beloved ’90s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
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