Will Smith knows ball. And by “ball,” I mean good metal bands.
The iconic actor and hip-hop star was recently spotted—albeit unexpectedly—moshing to Animals As Leaders. According to Lambgoat, the prog-metal band played a private show for Smith’s daughter Willow’s 26th birthday party. Check out footage of the slam-dancing Academy Award winner below.
Notably, heavy metal is not something the Smith family is new to. Will’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, co-founded the nu-metal band Wicked Wisdom in the early 2000s. They put out a couple of records about 20 years ago, and also played Ozzfest.
There isn’t any good footage of it anywhere online, but I personally remember a moment where Will “The Fresh Prince” Smith got onstage with Bury Your Dead. The Boston metalcore band has a couple of songs where the only lyrics are “Bury your f**king dead!” Smith came out and performed that with them, and it was so godd**n cool.
Will Smith is the most unassuming metalhead, and he knows it
In his memoir, Will, the longtime actor, recalled his wife and her band joining Ozzfest, which he was reluctant about. “Ozzfest…featured all the metals,” he penned, per Louder. “Thrash, industrial, hardcore punk, deathcore, metalcore, post-hardcore, alternative, death, gothic and nu.”
He explained that Sharon Osbourne, who co-founded Ozzfest with her late husband, Ozzy Osbourne, “had seen Jada’s band” and the two very quickly became close friends.
“Ozzfest is the least African American event outside of that broom-and-big-ass-hockey puck thing they do at the Olympics,” Smith went on to quip, referring to the sport of curling. “‘Babe, are you sure you don’t wanna do some R and B?’ I asked softly, but I meant it hard. ‘[Metal] is the music I feel,’ Jada responded softly, but she meant it hard. So we packed up our children and headed down the black brick road to the land of Ozz.”
After some time, Smith started to understand the draw, and eventually succumbed to the metal, as it were. “Ozzfest is a purist audience,” he noted. “And what began as skepticism and dismissal, with every show was transformed first into silence, and ultimately into respect.
Finally, he pointed out, “Jada’s appearance at Ozzfest was so successful that Guns N’ Roses asked her to open for them on their upcoming tour.”
Photo by Joshua Sammer/Getty Images for Sony Pictures
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