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Sorry Willie
Rapper-turned-actor-turned-rapper drops it like it's cold with Lost & Found
By Ricky Ribeiro
March 29, 2005
Certain things are simply unnecessary: Ashlee Simpson and a live microphone, Michael Jackson and rhinoplasty and Will Smith and his music career. As an actor and a comedian, Smith has proven more than once he’s capable of giving recognition-worthy performances. We love The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and we pack theaters to watch his blockbusters (Independence Day, I, Robot), but we stopped caring about his music long ago.
Smith is one of those rare instances of musician-turned-actor who turns out to be better at his second job than his first. We appreciate Smith’s work in the 1980s with DJ Jazzy Jeff: Together they crafted goodies like “Summertime” and “Parents Just Don’t Understand.” Hell, even that theme song to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is pretty classic too — but enough’s enough. We’ve suffered through Big Willie Style, Willenium, Born to Reign and now Lost and Found. Will, end this before somebody gets hurt.
Smith tries to make it personal on Lost & Found: He inserts his children, Sept. 11 and his struggle with being a “clean” rapper. It’s an attempt to come off as an artist pouring out his heart. The problem is we never get that; instead he just sounds patronizing and pretentious. The most egregious offense belongs to the track where Will rap/sings (suspiciously like Nelly) with Mary J. Blige about the world’s problems (psst, Jadakiss did a better job of this with “Why”).
Smith spends a portion of the album crying a river about how the black community and urban music scene shun him because he’s clean and doesn’t curse in his verses.
On “Mr. Nice Guy” he addresses all his haters: “People dissing Will sat on a wall/ People dissing Will had a great fall/ All the king’s horses and all the king’s men/ Couldn’t put none of their careers together again.” And this is exactly the problem — he sounds so corny it’s too hard to take him seriously — I mean, he just recited Humpty Dumpty.
As far as Mother Goose goes, it’s hard to say she’d be so hot on Smith featuring Snoop Dogg in a career-low cameo on “Pump Ya Brakes,” a song talking about how men and women need to be patient and more courteous toward one another. Mind you, Snoop is on this song after just putting out an album including a song called “Can U Control Yo Hoe.” It’s like Sesame Street inviting Kobe Bryant to teach kids that “No, means no.”
The one song on the album that works in some way is first single “Switch.” The Timbaland-biting beat is vivid and energetic enough to bypass some of Will’s colorless rhymes and will work as a fine party-starter at a nearby 10-year-old’s birthday party. If Smith is smart this will be the last album we hear from him. He’d make a fine artist on the next edition of Kidz Bop, but other than that, see you at the movies, Will.