NOT IN HIS BEDROOM ANYMORE — DJ Jazzy Jeff relaxes in the studio between sessions(photo by Gregg Kirk)

I’m the DJ, He’s the Rapper

By GREGG KIRK
(May 1990, Big Shout Magazine)

It was Mark Twain who said, “You can never go home,” in reference to the disappointment someone feels when leaving his hometown, making good on his own, and then returning to find the place hasn’t changed, has changed for the worse, or its residents fail to recognize that person’s accomplishments.

In the case of DJ Jazzy Jeff (Townes) and Fresh Prince (Will Smith), not only are all of the above true, but in most cases, some people haven’t even realized that the two ever left town. In fact, some don’t even know that they are from Philadelphia in the first place.

In an exclusive Big Shout interview, DJ Jazzy Jeff took time off during work in the Warehouse Studios on Delaware Ave., in Philadelphia to set the record straight and tell what it’s like to come home to a place that hasn’t given much more than a passing nod to such accomplishments as selling more than 3 million records and winning two American Music Awards and one Grammy.

Big Shout: So when did it all begin?

Jazzy Jeff: Things really took off for us in December of 1988. Our album He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper was released in April, and we were in the middle of a promotional tour so we didn’t really notice how popular we were getting. We toured with Run DMC from May to August and then on our own from August to December.

And during December, was it me or was the audience screaming louder? Was it me or was there more people at every show? We couldn’t tell, but the record company would call us up on the tour and say, “The album’s really skyrocketing, and the video is a number-one request on MTV.”

We couldn’t get real excited because we were working so hard. We’d say to the record people, “Oh yea, that’s really cool, but we got to go to a soundcheck now. Bye.”

BW: How well did the record do?

JJ: It ended up selling more than two million copies, and around July and August “Parents Just Don’t Understand” was number one and our second single “Nightmare on My Street” was number two on the charts. It was weird because we didn’t even get to pick our second single ourselves. The radio stations just started playing the song, and it started getting a lot of requests.

We filmed a video for it and everything, and it was the best video we’ve ever done. It didn’t get out, though, because New Line Cinema, the people who released the movie Nightmare on Elm St. put an injunction on it. They had a contract with the Fat Boys to do a song and a video for the latest Freddie Krueger movie, and here we had done one on our own. A lot of radio stations across the country played it up by having contests to see which song the people liked better — ours or the Fat Boys. Ours won.

And then, even though we couldn’t get the video to be played because of the injunction, it became the number-three requested video on MTV with no release. If that video ever would have been released, we could have sold a million more records.

BS: And then you got nominated for some awards.

JJ: Yeah, we were nominated for two American Music Awards — Best Rap Group and Best Album, and even then it really didn’t sink in how big we were getting. We went to the rehearsal for the show because we got asked to play, and I saw the signs with the nametags for Michal Jackson and Eddie Murphy, and I said to the people with me, “Damn, last year I was watching this in my house, and now it’s me!”

It still didn’t seem like it was happening to us until they gave away the first award. Everything got really quiet, and suddenly they announced us for Best Rap Album, and I was cheering but it was like I was cheering for somebody else. We went up on stage and brought up a lot of our friends, and it was really cool.

We went backstage for a while, and then they started to announce the award for Best Rap Group, and we won that, too. We went up on stage and said, “We’d like to say we won this for Philadelphia.”

When I got back to my room there was about 50 messages for me and I couldn’t even hear them because calls were coming in while I was trying to listen to them. Everyone I knew saw it on TV and was calling up to congratulate us.

We flew back to Philadelphia the next day, and when we landed the pilot said, “Will the DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince group please deplane last.” We thought, “What the hell is going on?” And then I looked out the window, and I saw thousands of people waiting for us. I couldn’t believe it. There was my mother and all my friends and thousands of people there to greet us. That’s when we finally realized what was going on.

BS: And that was really the first acknowledgement from your hometown?

JJ: Yeah, it was like we had to go outside of the area to make it big. We would be interviewed on these radio stations in places like Texas, and they would say, “Wow, the radio stations at home must really love you guys.” And we’d say, “Weeellllll.” Philadelphia radio was funny to us, and it made us feel like maybe we should move to Texas (laughs).

BS: What happened with the Grammies? Why didn’t you go?

JJ: We boycotted the Grammies with a lot of other rap groups because we heard they weren’t going to televise the rap part of the awards. They said they only had enough time to show 19 awards, and out of all the awards given, don’t you think that rap music was at least number three or four in top-selling music? Prince (Will Smith) and I felt cheated. It was like going to school for 12 years and having someone else walking down the aisle for you. We had a big press conference in L.A. with a couple of other rap groups during the awards to explain why we were boycotting them.

And then we heard we won for Best Rap Performance. We were happy, but we felt cheated at the same time. It wasn’t at all like the American Music Awards where we came home to thousands of people screaming for us.

BS: And then what happened?

JJ: And then the problems started (laughs). We started listening to people criticizing us for selling out. They were saying that now that we were famous, we weren’t writing good music. And our first mistake was to listen to this. But in a way they were right.

When we wrote “Parents,” I was in my bedroom with Prince (Smith) there in his cut-off jeans. It only took us half-an hour to write that song because we knew what we wanted. After we got big, it wasn’t like that anymore. It wasn’t Prince coming over in his beat-up truck to write songs; it was Prince coming over in his Mercedes with 10 girls over there and us saying, What do you think of this? OK? That’s good. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

We decided we had to make the album more black sounding, and when we released And in This Corner… on Halloween, it sold a million copies.

BS: Why do you think this happens to so many performers?

JJ: It’s like when someone like Eddie Murphy is funny because he talks about the stuff that happened to him when he grew up. And then he moves to Beverly Hills, and he’s not around the stuff that made him funny in the first place. You have to constantly be on the scene. You have to earn what’s yours all over again every time you do it.

With us, we wrote about things that happened to us at home. Like my mother would always be yelling at me to take out the trash or something, and we’d write about that and it would be great. But then we moved out and got apartments of our own, and we don’t have to take out the trash anymore. You see, Prince and I are the same on and off the stage. We write about what comes from our hearts.

You have to make music from your heart, and if the people stop accepting the music from your heart, it’s time to quit.

BS: What are you working on now?

JJ: We took off March to work on the new album. We have nine cuts that are now finished, and it’s going to be our second release in the same year. It’s great because now I’ve got my own “C” room here in the Warehouse, and I come in here 16 hours a day and work on stuff. Sometimes I just sit here and think. It’s a lot better than when we went into studios in Europe and you just went in to work. I come in here and Michele (Niceler, co-owner of the Warehouse Studios) cooks me brownies everyday (laughs). It’s important to be comfortable.

Prince is also starting in a TV series which will air this fall on NBC called “The Prince of Bel Air.” I wrote the theme song to the show, and I’ll be making some appearances in it, and Prince is out in L.A. now shooting the pilot. We’ll be moving more into acting and soundtracks in the future. Prince is the one who handles all the movie stuff and he says he’s working on three movies for us — one with Dan Akroyd.

I’ve also got my own production company called A Touch of Jazz Productions, and I’ve got eight groups I’m working with now. A lot of people would be surprised about the type of people I’ve got with me. Only two of the eight artists are rappers. I’ve got house artists, R&B performers, and ballad singers. I’ve also been doing the live production for Manualla of Technotronic, and I’ve got a group I’m real excited about called Exotic & the Master, which is a mixture of total R&B and total hardcore rap.

With all this stuff going on and our album coming out at the end of the summer, I want Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince in everyone’s face by the end of ’90 and the beginning of ’91.