Big Willie is back, as Will Smith on Wednesday teased that he’s getting ready to drop some fresh music for the first time in a long time.
Smith, now 49, owes his career to his early rap career as the Fresh Prince in the 1980s, parlaying his popularity to television on the beloved Fresh Prince of Bel Air, which ran for six seasons. That success meant that acting increasingly took precedence over music. His last studio album was Lost and Found, released in 2005. Since then, he’s only officially released one single, “Get Lit,” which was released last year.
But on Wednesday, Smith posted videos on Instagram and YouTube promising far more than just a one-off single in the near future.
“Gettin’ back in the studio,” Smith wrote on Instagram. “Just warmin’ Up.”
That short clip pointed to a longer Youtube video he posted, where he talked about how busy he has been over the years.
“At my peak, I was doing a television show, a movie and an album every year,” he says in the video. “So like, just churning out that kind of creativity. What happens is you get to a point where you get empty.”
But now?
“I’m excited. I’m reenergized. I’m creating wildly like I used to,” he said. “I’m ready.”
Smith even shows nearly an entire track he raps on, showing a bit more edge and attitude than his past music. And an announcement that he’s back.
“I got inspired, quickly I unretired, the Fresh Prince just rewired and slightly demodified,” he raps.
Last August, ET caught up with Smith in England when he returned to the stage for the first time in at least a decade for just two shows in Europe. There, he told ET’s Kevin Frazier that it was LL Cool J who got him thinking again about music and convinced him to reunite with his old partner, DJ Jazzy Jeff.
“I looked at Jeff and he was getting old, man, and I was like, ‘I can’t do this to this boy,’” Smith joked at the time about the reunion. “It was time. LL hit me [up and] was like, ‘Dude, I’m telling you, it’s time. You have no idea the love that’s out there.’ I was listening to L like, ‘All right, I need to do it.’”
“Now I got the bug,” Smith continued. “I was on fire last night. It was the first time being on stage in a while. I blew my voice out a little — I do that all the time. I just can’t contain myself on stage.”
It was great to see Smith perform again, but it was just those two shows. Now, Smith is promising more. Much more.
His Youtube video on Wednesday ends with a promise: “New music coming soon.”
For a look back at one of Smith’s most famous roles, watch the video below.
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