(* as the latter in DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince )
Chart entered : 4 October 1986
Chart peak : 21
Number of hits : 21 ( 8 with Jazzy Jeff, 11 solo, 2 as a featured artist )
I don't think anyone thought they were witnessing the birth of a global superstar here but there you go.
Willard Smith was born in Philadelphia in 1968 to a lower middle class family. He declined to go to college preferring to pursue a career in rap music. He got together with his slightly older friend Jeff Townes, a DJ to form the Mantronix-style duo "DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince" , the name referring to his youth. They were assisted in the music by a friend Clarence "Ready Rock C " Holmes . The duo never intended to be a hardcore act - Wilf ( as he's credited on the sleeve ) didn't swear and their records were geared for radio play.
This was their debut single based around around a sample from the the sixties TV comedy "I Dream of Jeannie". Apart from that the music is pretty minimal , just Wilf and the beat box. The lyric recounts three "romantic" misadventures with a bunny boiler who cries rape and gets him in trouble with the cops, a girl whose boyfriend discovers them getting it on and a girl who takes so long getting ready they miss a Run DMC concert. The song goes in tandem with a comic video whose storyboard follows the lyric very closely and Wilf's screen presence is very obvious. It's a skilled piece of pop rap and though not my thing it's pleasant enough. This was something of an outlier hit here; they wouldn't score another until the nineties.
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