Will Smith’s Nonchalant Beginning in Music Industry Makes Him Beating Eminem for a Prestigious Award Look More Pinching

Will Smith is now one of the most popular Hollywood actors, but he started his career as a musician. In fact, kickstarting his career as a musician was also not on his bingo cards. It was just something that he did and turned out to be extremely good at. One can say that he is a natural in this field.

However, this indifference with which he started his music career makes his 1999 MTV VMAs win against rap icon Eminem look even more amusing. This is especially true since Smith’s acceptance speech for this award marked the beginning of a long-running feud between the two artists.

Will Smith never really planned to be a musician

Some people strive for years to get somewhere when they embark on their journeys to build a career, and then there is Will Smith for whom his hobby ended up giving him a big start in the entertainment industry of all places.

Nearly four decades ago, Smith met his collaborator DJ Jazzy Jeff by chance at a house party and the duo had such chemistry that they decided to work together professionally as the hip-hop duo, DJ Jazzy & the Fresh Prince. The success of their first single, Girls Ain’t Nothing but Trouble landed them on the radars of a renowned recording executive and the record label, Jive Records.

The group won two Grammys, but Smith began struggling financially in 1990 because he spent his money freely. This was when NBC TV network swooped in with the offer of a contract and started the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, based on Smith’s rap persona.

While promoting the show in an interview with E!, the Independence Day actor revealed that having a music career was unintentional. He said:

The music started as a hobby, so I wasn’t trying to have it lead me anywhere. I guess God had different plans for me.

God definitely did have different plans for him and big ones at that because the success of this sitcom also gave his acting career the start that it needed. The rest, as they say, is history.

Will Smith’s casual rise as a successful musician makes his MTV VMAs win over Eminem even more striking

Smith won in the Best Male Video category at the 1999 MTV VMAs for the song Miami. In his acceptance speech, he mentioned that he never had to curse or threaten anyone in any of his songs to win an award (via Reddit). Eminem took this as a personal diss towards himself because his breakthrough hit My Name Is was also nominated in that category.

The only two other artists nominated in the category were Lenny Kravitz for the song Fly Away and Ricky Martin for Livin’ la Vida Loca. Neither of these songs had any curse words. So, it seems understandable that the Houdini rapper thought that it was a jibe at his songwriting.

He was obviously not going to let it go and some lines of his song The Real Slim Shady are proof of this. Here is what he sings in that song:

Will Smith doesn’t have to cuss to sell records / Well, I do / So f*ck him. And f*ck you too.

Smith took his own time to respond to this in his 2005 song Mr. Niceguy. However, in this song, the actor claimed that he had done nothing to bother Eminem. It has been years since then and the two seem to have indirectly called a truce.