Will Smith isn’t working from his infamous Oscars slap — he’s even rapping about it.
Smith, 56, launched his new album, Based mostly on a True Story, on Friday, March 28, and it’s full of lyrics that seemingly reference the 2022 Oscars second when he unexpectedly walked on stage and slapped host Chris Rock. It got here after Rock made an unscripted joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head. (Jada has alopecia.)
Cameras caught Smith yelling at Rock after the actual fact, telling the comic, “Preserve my spouse’s title out of your f—— mouth!”
Smith seems to reference the incident instantly on the album, his first since he released Lost and Found in 2005. The primary tune, “Int. Barbershop — Day,” that includes B. Simone and DJ Jazzy Jeff, opens with the road, “Will Smith is cancelled.”
One other voice later provides, “I ain’t by no means going to forgive him for that s— he did.”
The tune makes a extra direct reference to the incident later with the strains, “Him and Jada each loopy, woman, what you talkin’ bout? / You higher preserve his spouse’s title out of your mouth.”
“I heard he gained the Oscar however he needed to give it again / And you recognize they solely made him do this s— as a result of he’s Black,” the tune continues.

Smith didn’t must return his 2022 Greatest Actor Oscar for his function within the 2021’s King Richard, however he was banned from Academy Awards occasions for the subsequent 10 years. The actor additionally resigned from the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences. Following the incident, Smith issued a public apology.
“Jokes at my expense are part of the job, however a joke about Jada’s medical situation was an excessive amount of for me to bear emotionally,” he stated on the time. “I wish to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I used to be out of line, and I used to be fallacious. I’m embarrassed, and my actions weren’t indicative of the person I need to be.”
Smith added extra references to the slap later within the album on the observe, “You Lookin’ For Me?”
“Took rather a lot, I’m again on prime / Y’all gon’ must get acclimated / Gained’t cease, my s— nonetheless scorching / Despite the fact that I gained’t get nominated,” Smith raps.
The Contemporary Prince actor defined in a teaser video earlier than the album launch that it got here after a pair years of “deep exploration” into who he’s.
“The method of this album is actually permitting myself to be extra trustworthy with myself than I ever have about who and what I really am,” he continued. “That is about to be the best inventive artistic interval of my complete life.”
Earlier than releasing the album, Smith had already dropped just a few singles, together with “Lovely Scars,” that includes Massive Sean.
“The thought of ‘Lovely Scars’ is simply one of many issues that actually popped by way of for me as such a price to acknowledge {that a} problem, an adversity, a problem, an impediment is difficult and painful within the second however what you’re going by way of can change into the best factor that has ever occurred,” Smith defined throughout an iHeartRadio Reside occasion in January. “What begins out as an adversity can flip into a fantastic stepping stone.”
Different singles on the album embrace “Work of Artwork,” that includes his and Jada’s son Jaden Smith and Russ, “Tantrum,” with Joyner Lucas and “You Can Make It.”