Will Smith is urging anyone going through a difficult period in their life to "embrace the journey" in his new song "You Can Make It," out today.
Assisted by Fridayy and the Sunday Service Choir, the latter of which should be familiar to longtime Ye listeners from the Jesus Is King era, Big Will begins the new track in an inspirational mindset by appealing directly to the listener to not give up amid their struggles. This continues into the second verse, where Smith posits that a more difficult journey means a greater reward ("The harder the fall, the higher you soar") before shifting into a more personal perspective.
"Believe me, they tried to bleed Will Smith," he raps in a line that’s certain to be linked to the can-we-please-stop-talking-about-it Oscars slaptroversy. From there, the recent Bad Boys: Ride or Die star reframes "adversity" as a "gift" that helped him reach new heights.
Believe me, they tried to bleed Will Smith
In the rearview, I see adversity was the gift
To lift me higher, gifts require faith
So dry your eyes and then you'll find a way
Out of the madness, out of the maze
Out of the sadness into the rays
The darkest of nights will turn into days
And every storm runs out of rain, hold on
In the two years since Smith’s televised slapping of Chris Rock, speculation has persisted, at least until quite recently, that the incident would have a lasting negative impact on the 55-year-old actor in the eyes of the public. This was proven to be a decidedly ridiculous assumption with this month’s release of Smith and Martin Lawrence’s fourth Bad Boys entry, which debuted atop the U.S. box office and has since stacked up just under $300 million globally.
On the music side of things, the four-time Grammy winner hasn’t rolled out a full-length studio album since 2005’s Lost and Found. Following his recent surprise performance of "Men in Black" at this year’s Coachella festival, memory of which was wiped clean for those in attendance due to the timely deployment of a neuralyzer, Smith is next set to perform at this weekend’s BET Awards.
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