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Besides featuring on a remix of Bomba Estéreo’s “Fiesta” a few years back, Will Smith hasn’t released a new song in 12 years. So when it was revealed he and his old pal DJ Jazzy Jeff were getting back together, fans were understandably excited. Then they debuted a new track at Livewire Music Festival, and the excitement died with the phrase “lit.” The newly unveiled studio version of “Get Lit” isn’t any better.
The thing opens with the kind of reggaeton-EDM beat you’d expect from an awkward Comedy Central show where the lead characters try to go viral with their sick beats. Smith himself puts on an almost offensively bad Jamaican accent as he says things like, “Walk in da place/ Den da darkness erase.” It just gets worse as it becomes a barebones, obnoxious skittering cascade of electronic sounds and nonsense lyrics: “This is my room, this is my tune/ Your witch on my broom.” I’m sorry, I know we’re close to Halloween but come again? “We ain’t part of them Megatrons/ We transform and get lit.” Wait, what?
From the title to the beat to just the lyrical mess, it all feels like a dad who used to be cool trying to reclaim his stature amongst a generation that has a different definition of the word. That said, it’s still Will Smith, so it’s sort of endearing in its failure, but let’s hope his next output is more of the Big Willie style we remember.
Check out “Get Lit” below, because you know you’re going to.
Revisit footage of the live debut of “Get Lit” from back in August at UK’s Livewire Music Festival: