Why rappers make great actors, according to Will Smith and Queen Latifah
Will Smith is arguably one of the most successful rappers-turned-actors of all time, and his transition into Hollywood happened pretty fast. Soon after his explosion onto the rap scene in the late 1980s alongside DJ Jazzy Jeff as The Fresh Prince, Smith found himself on TV screens across the US.
The same is true for other artists, most notably female emcee Queen Latifah. Will Smith and Queen Latifah had similar paths to success. Both debuted as rappers and then headlined TV sitcoms in the 1990s, Smith on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Latifah on Living Single.
Although Will Smith and Queen Latifah were two of the earliest MCs to turn their focus entirely to acting, they are not the only lyricists who have done so. Over the years, figures such as LL Cool J, Ice-T and Ice Cube have seen their thriving acting careers overtake their music.
That said, during a press run for the first Bad Boys film in 1995, Smith unveiled a theory he and Queen Latifah had formulated concerning why rappers often make such good actors.
When asked why he and other artists at the time had adapted so well to the world of acting, Smith responded, “I have an interesting hypothesis about that! I’m glad you asked me that question. I was pondering that concept with Queen Latifah.”
Smith then proceeded to explain how much authenticity, energy and dynamism it takes to perform hip-hop music live and detailed how that contributes to rappers’ abilities in comparison to other musicians, stating, “What it is with most rappers versus other singers is the person who’s performing the material has written and produced 100% of it. Rap is a storytelling mode, kind of like country. Whereas there’s always stories, and rappers tend to perform them more than other forms of music.”
He emphasised its physicality, adding, “The stage performances tend to be a little more theatrical in rap than they are in other forms of music. So, the rappers are more prepared to act because that’s what you’ve been doing. You’re playing a character.”
The ‘Summertime’ rhymer even revealed that gangsta rap has elements of performance, insisting, “Even with the gangsta rap, these are characters! They’re talking about all of these characters and all of these people that they’ve seen in their neighborhoods and what they did and what this happened. On stage, you act it out, what the person did. It’s something that everybody can’t relate to, but it tends to be a little more theatrical than other forms of music.”
Many musicians from other genres, including rock and pop stars, have tried to become actors over the years, but it has taken a long time for artists such as Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga and Alicia Keys to enter the acting space.