In 1988, DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince continued their success with the album He’s The DJ, I’m The Rapper featuring the radio-friendly singles “Parents Just Don't Understand”, “Brand New Funk” and “Nightmare on My Street”. The album won the first ever Grammy Award for a Rap Performance. That album was followed by And In This Corner... which, while not hitting the heights of its predecessor, continued the pair’s rise to stardom.
Two year’s later, Smith began his remarkable cross-over into acting. Drawing on his experiences of fledgling stardom, NBC signed Smith to star in a sitcom about a street-smart kid from Philadelphia being shipped off to California to live with wealthy relatives in Bel-Air. Playing on his rapper persona and at times featuring DJ Jazzy Jeff, The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air was a huge success that ran for six seasons. As well as the show, the rap duo kept producing music until 1993. The 1991 album Homebase produced the hits “Summertime” and “Ring My Bell” and their final album together, 1993’s Code Red, was notable for “Boom! I Shake The Room”.
While still making The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Smith began a second cross-over into movies. Small roles in the drama Where The Day Takes You and the comedy Made In America were followed by a critically-acclaimed lead in the drama Six Degrees of Separation. As in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Smith played a charming street-wise kid moving among a wealthy elite but in the film his character was portrayed as a psychologically-complex gay hustler. The film enjoyed moderate success but its title idea has become a household term for the closeness of human society.
Smith’s first steps into super-stardom came with his next film Bad Boys. The high-budget cop movie saw him team up with comic Martin Lawrence, breaking away from the black cop-white cop formula that had been so successful for Beverly Hills Cop and the Lethal Weapon series. The two black leads proved an instant success and Smith, playing the smooth, serious, cop to Lawrence’s clown, was established as leading-man material.
The 1996, epic sci-fi disaster movie Independence Day was his next assignment and it confirmed him as a major player in Hollywood and a go-to guy for the all-important summer blockbuster. Smith played an air force pilot leading the counter-attack against the invading alien forces and his comedic talents effortlessly transformed into the pithy one-liners that all action hero leads need to be able to drop while dispatching their enemies.
Smith fought aliens again in his next blockbuster, the 1997 sci-fi-action-comedy Men In Black. Playing opposite Tommy Lee Jones, Smith chewed up the blue screen as the new recruit to Jones’s old hand. Smith sang the theme song and its inclusion on his album Big Willie Style, along with the hit song “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It”, meant Smith had two successes on his hands at the same time. Another Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster followed with the slick conspiracy thriller Enemy of the State playing opposite Gene Hackman.
The string of four hits came to an end in 1999 with Wild Wild West, a sci-fi-cowboy-comedy caper with Kevin Kline. Despite the film’s failure, the track Smith cut for the title track was a hit on his album Willennium. The golf movie The Legend of Bagger Vance was next with Smith playing the caddie to Matt Damon’s out-of-sorts swinger.