Will Smith is back in his music bag, releasing his first full-length album in two decades.
"Based on a True Story" features 14 tracks, with appearances by Teyana Taylor, DJ Jazzy Jeff and comedian/social media personality B. Simone. The latter two appear on the intro track, "Int. Barbershop - Day."
In a video Smith shared on Thursday teasing the new project, he states that the "process for this album is really allowing myself to be more honest with myself than I ever have about who and what I actually am."
Will Smith and Tatyana Ali recreate iconic 'Fresh Prince' dance scene amid album announcement
"This is about to be the greatest artistic, creative period of my entire life," he adds.
Among the topics mentioned on Smith's new album is his first Oscar win in 2022 and the now-infamous incident in which he slapped Chris Rock during that awards ceremony, leading to his 10-year ban from the event and rumors the award would be rescinded. In the end, Smith was not asked to return the award.
Following the Oscars slap, Smith apologized to Rock in a video shared on social media.
Nearly a year after the incident, Rock addressed the slap in his Netflix special, "Selective Outrage."
"I'm going to try to do a show tonight without offending nobody. I'm going to try my best, because you never know who might get triggered," he said at the time. "People always say words hurt. Anybody who says words hurt has never been punched in the face."
In "Int. Barbershop - Day," Smith plays different voices in a barbershop inspired by Eddie Murphy's barbershop scene from "Coming To America." In a video shared Friday on Instagram, Smith says he wanted to capture the "barbershop vibe of people talking about me."
Will Smith addresses Oscars slap, apologizes to Chris Rock in new video"Just all the stuff that I heard," he says. "It was fun to play all of the different characters and be my own hater."
In the track itself, Smith raps, "I heard he won the Oscar but he had to give it back / and you know they only made him do that s--- because he's Black."
"I ain't never gonna forgive him for the s--- he did," Smith continues in another voice. "You better keep his wife's name out of your mouth."
Smith also references those topics on the second track, "You Lookin' For Me?", where he raps, "Won't stop, my s---'s still hot even though I won't get nominatеd / Personal life with my wife, mind your business, it's complicated."
The actor and singer said in a video shared to Instagram on Friday that "You Lookin' For Me?" is "attached" to the first track and addresses "a little bit of where I've been and what I've been doing."
"I just kept hearing people say, 'Where is Will Smith?'" he added.
Smith's new album includes several previously released singles, including "First Love" featuring India Martinez and Marcin, "Beautiful Scars" featuring Big Sean and O Banga, and "You Can Make It" featuring Fridayy and Sunday Service Choir.
See the full tracklist for "Based on a True Story" below.
