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Will Smith’s ‘Based on a True Story’ Foregoes Fun for Self-Help Soliloquies: Album Review
Will Smith's first album since 2005, 'Based on a True Story,' is full of self-help talk and a cocky sense of self-forgiveness, but not enough fun.
And that begins to look like the case as the rapper brings up the DJ again (“Me and Jeff, like Jordan and Scotty”) at the top of the throbbing “You Lookin’ for Me?” Simultaneously punched out, yet refusing to stay down for the count, a gruff Smith does his actorly best to understand, then diss, his public’s view of the slap heard round the world. Smith even turns a potentially sensual scene with temptress Teyana Taylor – in the seductive, jittery tones of “Hard Times (Smile),” with its sultry Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band sample – into something you’d hear from an elbow-patched professor coming on coyly to a TikTok beauty influencer. Though the goal of “Based on a True Story” is connected to a willingness to learn from life’s lessons, and prove there’s power in positivity (over responsibility), Will Smith’s message of mental health and all-around might sounds like mere moralizing (and rationalizing) over way too many half-assed, over-produced beats.
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