I, the Insincere Robot: What's Not on Will Smith's New Album

On Friday, March 28, Based On a True Story was released, the fifth solo album and the first in twenty years by Will Smith, a Hollywood superstar and a man who, with one slap in the face at the Oscars, crossed out decades of popular love in his homeland. Izvestia listened to the album and came to the conclusion that Will Smith is terrified of sincerity, although he himself stated the album as a very personal statement.

Enemy of the State

"Will Smith IS CANCELED" — that's right, in capital letters, otherwise it's impossible to convey the intonation — these are the words that open the first album in twenty years by one of the highest-grossing actors in history and a four-time Grammy winner. The same voice as at the beginning, a minute later, quotes a phrase that has gone down in history forever, thanks to the episode after which Will Smith was canceled: "Keep my wife's name away from yours... mouth!"

Recall: almost every day three years ago, on March 27, 2022, Chris Rock, who presented the Oscar for Best documentary, joked about the shaved head of Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, with a reference to "Soldier Jane." A few seconds later, Will Smith came on stage, slapped Rock in the face, and when he returned to his seat, he shouted the same phrase. The Dolby Theater froze in shock, as did the whole world. When, an hour later, Smith accepted the award for best actor, went up on stage and apologized to everyone except Rock, the shock seemed to have become even deeper.

Will Smith was indeed "canceled" — but cancellation has its own scale of gradations. Harvey Weinstein is at one pole, Kevin Spacey is next to him, despite the fact that he was acquitted and returned to the cinema, and Smith is somewhere near the opposite. Yes, the highest-grossing black actor is now almost not given roles in films, but even after the Oscar slap in the face, he starred in another part of "Bad Guys", which collected $ 400 million at the global box office. His social media accounts are thriving. He goes to stream to the young heroes of social networks. He is calm at the Grammys, where, in a duet with Herbie Hancock, he remembers Quincy Jones, the producer of Michael Jackson, the patriarch of jazz and pop music, who once launched Smith's acting career. After all, he has not raped anyone, molested anyone, is not in prison, and is not forced to earn a living by acting in Croatian cinema.

Am I a legend or not a legend

But there was still a slap in the face, and, as you know, the American Film Academy banned Smith from participating in the Oscar for ten years. This seriously limits his career prospects in Hollywood, although, it would seem, what do the viewers of blockbusters care about the awards, where they mostly award auteur films. And yet. Against this background, a return to music seems logical.

Especially since it all started with her. The duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince — Smith and his friend DJ Jazzy Jeff — launched the creative path of the future "man in black" in the late 1980s. Hip-hop of that era, saturated with raw samples, synthesizers and drum machines, sounds fresh even today. The duo's music is no exception: charm, boldness, and dance energy are still felt in it, even if the lyrics are simple. But perhaps it was this naivety — clumsy lines about girls, teenage problems, the sun and summer — that helped them become iconic figures of popular culture. The first ever Grammy for Best Rap Performance ("Parents Just Don't Understand") attracted the attention of Quincy Jones, who, after seeing Smith's music videos and performances, offered him the lead role in the sitcom The Prince of Beverly Hills. The show became a cult hit, lasted six seasons in prime time, and paved the way for Smith to go to the movies.

But even after Smith became the face of blockbusters, he did not give up rap. Everyone who caught the second half of the nineties remembers his tracks for "Men in Black" and "Wild, Wild West". The future Oscar-winning brawler has released four solo albums, each of which has been a commercial success ranging from solid to stunning, but has always been heavily criticized. It was a "low-key" rap: Smith did not swear, but sometimes read, by the standards of the hypermasculine genre, almost embarrassing things (I remember the line "I want to kiss you on the lips" from the song Just the Two of Us, addressed to his son Willard).

New album Based On a True Story ("Based on real Events") Smith himself called it "the most personal statement of my career." Even like this: "I asked Kendrick Lamar what I should read about in the songs. Kendrick replied: "About what you really fucking feel and know." This is an application for a confessional, deep work — something different from his previous polished musical material, which played more on the carefully constructed image of a movie star. Is this really the case?

The bad guy forever

No, that's not true.

The very first track on the record is made as a comedy sketch. The action takes place in a barbershop: three male and one female voices discuss Will Smith — mostly in a negative way. They say that Smith is no longer "cool", he keeps afloat only thanks to his children, they have some kind of strange relationship with his wife, and in his entire career he has released only one good album. And most importantly, "I will never forgive Will Smith for what he did."

It is not clear what these voices are, because they are not fully listed in the memorial album. One of them clearly belongs to Jazzy Jeff, the other to actress Brailyn Simon, and the other two are quite possibly Smith himself, which adds spice. But this is where even the veiled references to his "cancellation" and the Chris Rock incident are almost exhausted. In the remaining 35 minutes of "the most personal statement of his career," he allows himself only a couple of lines that, if you try very hard, can be considered hints of reality. Everything else is muddy, dirty, unfiltered water.

Take the track Tantrum, whose name can be translated into Russian as "Hysteria". When you see such a word in the album's title, you expect Smith to finally explain what kind of tantrum happened to him at the Oscars. But the text is a chaotic jumble of motivational phrases, self—praise, and nothing specific. The chorus goes like this: "On the road again, taking a chance on a new one. / I'm looking for, asking myself hundreds of questions. / I hope that the medicine will help heal the wounds. / But inside, my inner child is hysterical." Very good, Will. That is, of course, it's bad. We sympathize with all our hearts. We understand that you're sad. And then what?

Or take the track Beautiful Scars, in Russian — "Beautiful wounds". Perhaps the most successful on the album musically: high—octane, driving, even — a rare case when this word is used to Will Smith's solo work - powerful. But the text again boils down to the same hackneyed truths and dubious metaphors: "Being god means staying true to your values and defying fate. / I am getting closer to the Almighty, as if in a synagogue." You must agree, such a line — well, maybe without mentioning the synagogue, although why not? — it would look great on a meme from a kid's public.

To emphasize his mental agony and inner anger, Smith even—just think! — swearing. Sometimes. It sounds exactly as insincere, even comical, as one might assume. The point, again, is that texts Based On a True Story are devoid of specifics and exist in the realm of abstractions. Instead of confessing, apologizing, accepting responsibility, or at least trying to sort yourself out, there is a stream of vague feelings. It's like a man who's afraid to open up is talking, sitting in his shell, and it's already boiling, getting hot, steam coming out of the cracks.

In pursuit of happiness

Musically, the first two thirds of the album are closely related to the text content. It's the same "evil" rap, built on hard beats and epic arrangements. It's like the hip-hop of the late noughties — literally as if the last fifteen years in music just didn't happen. Perhaps at this time, Will Smith was too busy starring in terrifying cranberries like "The Defender" or "Ghost Beauty" to keep an eye on where mainstream rap was heading.

But in the final third of Based On a True Story, an interesting story happens, no pun intended: the album suddenly turns into gospel music. Choirs are appearing — more precisely, the Sunday Service Choir, led by Kanye West (the man who recently changed the choir's logo to literally the SS flag, speaking of Smith's sense of trends). Sermons about overcoming oneself and hoping for the best can be heard from the speakers, and an organ sounds somewhere in the distance. Apparently, Smith and his agents decided that such an abrupt transition from anger to piety should complete the story arc of the album. But the arch comes out broken, with a gap in the middle, and one part of it clearly outweighs the other. And for no reason.

And again — no specifics, no reflection, no real emotions. It's like someone in management decided that the aggressive part of the album needed to be overlaid with an optimistic and uplifting one. Just to remind everyone that Will Smith is still a family friend.

The problem is deeper: Smith and his team have absolutely no sense of the era. We don't even live in the new sincerity, but in the post-sincerity, a time when the biggest pop stars like Taylor Swift don't hesitate to publicly wash their underwear and turn their albums into public diaries. Moreover, even Smith's own daughter Willow makes music that is hundreds of times more honest and sensual than he is.

Based On a True Story looks like a ridiculous, scared, inappropriate album that exists only to remind you of Will Smith himself. Was it worth claiming that this was an "insanely personal" job, if in the end it was a typical deception of the listener? The artist clearly wants to get back under the spotlight, dreams of his former adoration, no matter how hard he tries to hide it. But nothing will work with this approach. It seems that Will Smith was CANCELED today even more than just yesterday, because it was emotions with a slap in the face, and here it's just a fake.