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Will Smith’s rap career wasn’t looked at as necessarily a net positive when the creation of Fresh Prince Of Bel Air took place, ESPECIALLY since he’d just bricked with his and Jazzy’s third album and he owed the IRS a ton of money. Rap wasn’t the mainstream cultural juggernaut nor at the the center of the pop cultural zeitgeist coming into the 90’s that it WOULD become, ironically enough, thanks to shows like Fresh Prince and movies like House Party, which debuted the same year. Will got Fresh Prince because Benny Medina believed in him after seeing Will’s music videos for Girls Ain’t Nothin Trouble, Parents Just Don’t Understand, and I Think I Beat Mike Tyson and convinced Quincy Jones to take the chance on backing him. The network execs were NOT sold on Will at the time due to not understanding rap nor Will’s appeal. Quincy arranged an impromptu dinner party at his mansion IN Bel Air and had Will come by and basically audition in front of the head of NBC and a slew of studio execs. THATS how he got the show and ended up breaking into Hollywood.
Will’s story, despite his success as a rapper, is extremely similar to Kevin’s, in that if people can see your talent, charm, and hustle, you’ll get an opportunity. If people see all of that PLUS the potential you’ll be a star, you get a BIG opportunity. Same thing happened for Kevin Hart, Dave Chappelle, Eddie Murphy, and Chris Rock. Kevin Hart had been doing comedy and touring the chitlin circuit (RIGHT BESIDE Katt Williams) for at LEAST 4-5 years before Soul Plane. Kevin was 24 when he landed the role in Soul Plane. Dave Chappelle was 19 when he landed Robin Hood: Men In Tights and had been doing standup since he was 15. Thats 4 years. Eddie Murphy was 18 when he got SNL and had been doing standup since he was 14. Thats 4 years. Ok now lets discount Eddie since its universally agreed that Eddie was a prodigy, one a million type talent. Lets use Chris Rock, he’d been doing comedy since he was 19, he landed SNL at 24. Thats 5 years. And Chris had no specials at the time.
So this notion that a comedian couldn’t come out of “nowhere” and get a shot is false. You need talent and connections but it COULD be done