Page 17 - Will Smith: A Biography of a Rapper Turned Movie Star

Getting Paid to Party
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under the compressor, hands me the flashlight and with his
bare hands grabs the rat, snatches it from out of the gunk,
tosses it to one side, and lays his bald head in the spot where
that rat was. From that moment in my life, I decided I would
never, ever complain about what I have to do for a living.”10
In his spare time, Will was always listening to music. But
the music world was changing. When Will was eleven, he
heard a new song that left him amazed—“Rapper’s Delight,”
performed by Sugarhill Gang, a trio from New York City. It
was one of the first rap songs to be a commercial success.
The song was not a big hit in terms of sales. It reached
only as high as number 36 on Billboard magazine’s national
Hot 100 chart.11 Still, both in dance clubs and on radio
stations across the country, “Rapper’s Delight” was played
often and regarded as a hit.
While some rap music focuses on social issues such as
racial injustice or poverty, “Rapper’s Delight” was a party rap
song. The lyrics were funny, even silly. It was good-time music.
Will thought about Sugarhill Gang and decided they
were not doing anything that he could not do. After all, he
loved music and enjoyed writing poetry. All those Dr. Seuss
books his mother used to read to him had left an impression.
To Will’s thinking, the rhythm and rhyme created by Dr.
Seuss “sound a lot like hip-hop.”12 “I started rapping just as
soon as I heard that first song,” he said. “I rapped all day
long, until I thought my mom was going to lose her mind!
Music, after all, has always been in my heart. At first, I did it
as a hobby, and I enjoyed it and got really good at it.”13