Will Smith and DJ Khlaed Bring Hip-Hop Flavor to ‘Friend Like Me’

Leading up the the release of the remake of Disney’s Aladdin, Will Smith has been staying busy.  The 50-year-old stopped by Kimmel for an appearance to speak about shooting the film across the globe and taking on the unfamiliar role as the Genie on Tuesday, May 21st.

“Blue becomes me. I enjoy being blue. What’s so interesting that people don’t realize, when I’m blue Genie, there’s no part of that character that’s actually me,” Will told the audience. “It’s a 100 percent CGI character. It’s totally created.”

The Fresh Prince dabbles in his ’90s hip-hop roots with the help of  DJ Khaled, to bring some hip-hop flavor to the Disney movie for a remake of Robin Williams’ original “Friend Like Me.” The track should provide a heavy dose of nostalgia for Men In Black fans with the blockbuster actor all over the film’s soundtrack.

“I went into the studio the first day and I really wanted to play with it to see if I could add something to it. Literally 30 minutes in the studio, and started to play with the song [in] the 94/96 BPM range. That BPM range is right old-school hip-hop. So I grabbed The Honey Drippers’ ‘Impeach Your President’ [sic] and I had them throw that breakbeat under there,” Smith said in a press release. “I messed around with that. And I messed around with Erik B. & Rakim’s ‘I Know You Got Soul’ under ‘Friend Like Me.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m home!’ I started playing with the hip-hop flavor, and the Genie was really born in my mind from the music.”

Listen to Smith’s interpretation of the Disney classic here.

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