Disclaimer: I used to haaaaaaate Will Smith songs when they were popular. He was huge around the same time that I was really, really into gangsta rap. So basically, if you weren't rapping about shooting people, smacking hos, smoking weed, banging hos, drinking 40's, or collecting money from hos, then you weren't a real rapper in my mind. Bergman and Brother used to torture me by cruising around the house singing 'Wild Wild West' or 'Miami' for hours on end. Sometimes I still hear Bergman shouting "-wiki wiki wild.....wiki wild wild....wickity wickity wickity wickity!" in my nightmares.
Then, years later, I realized that at some point, almost all rappers either:
a) grow old and start selling out (Dr. Dre, Ice Cube)
b) disappoint me by starting out hard and then turning soft (really, 50 Cent?)
c) die before they have a chance to do one of those two things (Biggie, Ol' Dirty Bastard, 2Pac???- not ready to concede his death yet.)
Once I realized this, it was easier to just enjoy Big Will's music for what it was: easy-flowing pop music to get silly to on the dance floor.
So ANYWAY (that was way more of a lead-in than I was planning for) one of Smith's big selling points is his squeaky-clean image and lack of swearing in his songs. Prosecution's exhibit A: the lyric "All you rappers yelling about who you put in a hearse/do me a favor/write one verse without a curse."*
If you believe his boastful lyrics, there is an abundance of women who desire to be with him ("Every time the ladies pass, they be like 'Hi Willlll!'"........"Mr. Clean yet the fact remain/got girls who don't speak English screamin' my name") but he never does anything with them, ever ("I mean real clean, ain't gotta touch or nothin/ain't like I like a chick on chick or somethin/I'm just a sucker for a hot track/gimme a drink and a chick to tell stop that.") The most he'll do is throw them a dance or two at the club, then head home. He's the guy who goes to the hungover breakfast with his buddies the next morning, and as they rehash the night, he always says "I totally could've banged that chick last night, I just didn't feel like it though."
So what gets me thinking from 'Gettin' Jiggy Wit It' is the line "Ciga-cigar right from Cuba Cuba/I just bite it/It's for the look/I don't light it."
So there's a fairly transparent anti-smoking message in there. Parents aren't going to take their kids to see Men In Black to the tune of 600 million dollars if Big Willie Style is advocating cigar smoking**, and assisting the Cuban economy, no less! But I argue that what he says is worse. By telling kids that a cigar is SO COOL that just by dangling one out of their mouth (no homo) they automatically gain street cred, he's spreading an even worse message. Isn't that the entire basis for the problems people have with the tobacco industry's advertising? People have marched on Washington for this kind of shit! Plus, you don't think some of those kids, once their unlit Cuban is in place, are gonna just say "fuck it, let's see what this is like" and fire it up?
So now you've got middle schoolers smoking cigars just because it looks cool. You happy now, Bagger Vance? You're as bad as Joe Camel.
* Which, of course, led Eminem to respond: "Will Smith don't gotta cuss in his raps to sell records/well I do/so fuck him, and fuck you too." Say what you will about Eminem, but he never left a diss unanswered, no matter how obscure. This one wasn't even about him specifically, and it still earned a "fuck you, Will Smith" on one of his prominently released singles.
** I'll grant you that Smith did light up a stogey at the end of Independence Day, but c'mon, they had just saved the world from a catastrophic alien invasion. Like you wouldn't be smoking then?
