Will Smith: Coolest Man on Earth

by Nivethan Kajendran

Will Smith as Muhammad Ali, in the film 'Ali'

This article is going to about the coolest man himself, Will Smith - from the transitions of being a hip hop artist to an amazing sitcom star and finally making it as one of Hollywood’s A-listers.

Will grew up in Philadelphia with his mum, dad and siblings and was always a class clown. He began rapping at the age of 12 and grew a big passion with it at the age of 16. It was around this time that he went to a house party and sang along some sick beats and then met his future best friend DJ Jazzy Jeff. The two started working together going to gigs and performing at parties and started to make a name for themselves. Will had his rapping name, the Fresh Prince, back then. Then aged 18, Will dropped out a place at one of the greatest institutes, MIT, to go and pursue a career in rapping.  He then started working on his first album, Rock the House, which released in 1987, with Jazzy Jeff and the two instantly had fame. Then came their second album the following year which proved to be another success and by this point Will had become a millionaire. However, after the huge success Will was overspending on luxuries and as their 3rd album released the album made them no money and by this point 21 year old Will was broke.

Then came a career-turning move which was about to change his life forever. Will then went to NBC studios and went to see if he could get any luck with acting and, as luck would have, it he was cast in the lead role of the famous sitcom ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel Air’. Simply, the show was a huge success running between 1990-1996 and having 6 seasons and almost 150 episodes. Will’s popularity grew immensely and he started to have the goal of becoming one of the biggest-ever movie stars.

As he entered Hollywood he had a couple small roles to start with but then finally had a lengthy role in the movie '6 Degrees of Separation'. Despite getting positive reviews from critics, the movie flopped miserably at the box office. People started to question Will’s career in film. However, his next film proved he was just fine for Hollywood with the big hit of 'Bad Boys', which managed to make Will the new star of Hollywood. Then he had further big successes such as 'Independence Day' and 'Men in Black' which got him the superstar status. After that Will had many more successes, such as 'Ali', 'Men in Black 2', 'Bad Boys 2', 'I Robot', 'Hitch', 'The Pursuit of Happiness' (which is regarded as one of his best films) and then many more big action blockbusters such as 'I Am Legend' and 'Hancock'. In recent years, Will tasted more success with the movies 'Men in Black 3', 'Focus', 'Suicide Squad' and then the most recent film 'Aladdin'.Now get excited for the movies 'Gemini Man' and 'Bad Boy3' as they release very shortly.