will smith

772. ‘Men in Black’, by Will Smith

/ UK #1s blog / 9 Comments

The first half of 1997 was an interesting musical smorgasbord, with a quick turnover of number ones meaning we flitted gayly from genre to genre. During the second half of the year things will get slightly more predictable at the top of the charts, and records will start staying at #1 for slightly longer…

Men in Black, by Will Smith (his 1st and only solo #1)

4 weeks, from 10th August – 7th September 1997

Beginning with the year’s second big soundtrack hit. ‘Men in Black’ was the summer’s big popcorn movie, featuring Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones and some aliens, which I thought I remembered fondly until I realised I was thinking of ‘Independence Day’, from the year before. I probably did see ‘Men in Black’ at the time, but it hasn’t remained with me.

The lyrics are geared towards the movie plot, which means unique lines like: Walk in shadow, Move in silence, Guard against extra-terrestrial violence… It reminds me of Partners in Kryme – one of the first hip-hop chart toppers – and their rhymes about which Teenage Ninja Turtle liked pizza (Michelangelo, of course). You could class this, and Puff Daddy’s ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ as a step back for hip-hop, after more innovative and respectable #1s by the Fugees and Coolio. But at the same time, this was a huge-selling, month-long number one, and another sign that rap had gone mainstream. (It was also, I believe, the first time that one hip-hop track had knocked another off top spot).

It’s based around ‘Forget Me Nots’, a minor hit in 1982 for Patrice Rushen. If it sounds familiar, then that’s because George Michael had sampled it a year earlier on ‘Fastlove’. The chorus was edited and sung by Coko, of the R&B group SWV, who really should have gotten a co-credit, so much does she bring to the show.

“Will Smith don’t have to cuss to sell records, but I do”, Eminem would famously rap a few years after this. It’s easy to be snobbish about Smith’s family-friendly approach to hip-hop (an NME review at the time labelled him the ‘Cliff Richard of rap’) but really, this is well-made, catchy pop. I don’t love it now, twenty-seven years on, but it was everywhere that summer, and was the #1 when I started high school. Plus the Bouncin’ with me, Slide with me… break is still great fun. File it under ‘fondly remembered’.

‘Men in Black’ was Will Smith’s debut solo single, featuring on his first solo album ‘Big Willie Style’ (tee-hee) and marked a return to music after he’d begun focusing on acting in the early-nineties. He has of course already featured at number one, as the Fresh Prince with Jazzy Jeff in 1993; while this song set him up for a good few years of chart success. He would have eight further Top 5 hits between now and 2005, including three #2s. Respect from the hip-hop community never quite arrived, but he had a great ear for a sample, and made some of the records that define the late-nineties for many people of my generation. He hasn’t released much new music since the mid-2000s, but remains one of Hollywood’s big hitters…

695. ‘Boom! Shake the Room’, by Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince

/ UK #1s blog / 3 Comments

Yo back up now and give a brother room, The fuse is lit and I’m about to go boom…! The first thing that becomes immediately apparent when I press play on our next number one is that I know almost all the words. When and how this happened I don’t know, but here we are…

Boom! Shake the Room, by Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince (their 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 19th September – 3rd October 1993

It’s the most rap-heavy #1 so far. No sung chorus, a bit of chanting, just Big Will spitting rhymes. Or should that be ‘The Fresh Prince’. It’s easy to assume that this was a tie-in with his role in the hit sitcom, but in reality the sitcom was a tie-in for a rap career which had been going since the mid-eighties.

And while it may be the purest hip-hop chart topper thus far, I’ll make the same comment that I’ve made about almost all rap songs we’ve featured: it’s hard now not to see this as a novelty. The call and response, the lines about ‘scoring like Jordan’, the stuttering verse… All very cute, all very tame. A kids party DJ could throw this on and fear no repercussions. The closest we get to something gangsta is when Will promises to find a girl, flip her around and then work that booty…

But, it’s a lot of fun. Like I said, I know nearly all the words. I grew up with rap a lot more explicit than this (with lots of words that a person of my complexion can’t go around saying…) I’m reminded of the classic Eminem line: Will Smith doesn’t have to cuss to sell records, Well I do, So fuck him, And fuck you too… That’s funny, but it also shows where Will Smith stood in the early 2000s: commercially very successful, but an outlier in the eyes of other rappers. Back in 1993, we’re on the verge of rap becoming a dominant sound in the charts, and I really don’t know if ‘Boom! Shake the Room’ was seen as cool, or already a relic of an earlier time.

Speaking of Eminem, we’re only seven years away from him scoring a huge #1 single about having his girlfriend gagged and bound in the boot of his car. That’s a huge shift, considering that the rap songs to have made #1 have been this, one about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Vanilla Ice. While the worst swearword that’s been uttered in a number one single has been, I think, ‘bullshit’. It’ll be interesting to watch how quickly tastes and standards change in the remaining years of the 1990s.

And while you could say that Will Smith became a figure of fun, spare a thought for the guy behind the decks on this record. Initially, Jazzy Jeff was the star of the duo, with first billing here and on their early hits, with wonderful titles like ‘Parents Just Don’t Understand’ and the ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ sampling ‘Girls Ain’t Nothing But Trouble’. At the very start of their relationship, Smith was Jazzy Jeff’s stand-in hype-man. Come the TV series, though, Jeff had become a punchline, spending most of his time getting launched out the door by Uncle Phil. ‘Boom! Shake the Room’ was the duo’s biggest hit, in the UK at least, but it was one of their last. Will Smith went solo in 1997 (more on that soon) with Jeff producing some his songs. He’s remained very active though, performing with Smith from time to time, while one of his biggest legacies is popularising the ‘transformer scratch’, a version of which opens this record.