ENTERTAINMENT
Will Smith Raps ‘Just the Two of Us’ with 10-Year-Old Bass Player Ellen Alaverdyan: ‘Fantastic’
Will Smith is gettin’ jiggy with it again.
The musician and actor posted a video of himself rapping his hit song “Just the Two of Us” alongside 10-year-old bass player Ellen Alaverdyan on Instagram.
The young musician — who boasts close to 200,000 followers on Instagram — regularly posts videos performing hit songs, and in January, she shared a video playing the bass line of “Just the Two of Us.”
On Thursday, Smith, 54, shared an update to her video that included him rapping his 1998 hit as she played the bass.
“Wow!! @ellenplaysbass, this is FANTASTIC. You are the Sweetest!” he wrote alongside the video. He also tagged singer Jac Ross and jazz pianist Eric Lewis, asking them to “put somethin’ on it” — and Ross did just that, sharing his rendition of the song later on Thursday and adding his vocals to Smith and Ellen’s version.
“@willsmith THANK YOU FOR THIS MAGIC ❤️❤️❤️,” Ellen captioned a repost of Smith’s video, writing in a comment of his original post, “❤️❤️❤️❤️ THANK YOU WILL ????.”
It’s been a while since Smith has performed. He was set to make his musical comeback at the Grammys last month, but had to cancel the surprise.
The Fresh Prince was originally supposed to be part of the awards’ 50th anniversary of hip-hop tribute performance, Questlove — who produced the over-10-minute-long performance — told Variety. Host Trevor Noah had previously insinuated there would be a few surprise performances, but Smith had to drop out after starting to shoot Bad Boys 4.
“I’ll give the spoiler alert away. Will Smith was a part of the festivities tonight, but they started shooting Bad Boys 4 this week,” Questlove, 52, told Variety on the red carpet. “There were a lot of preliminary shots that he had to do, so we had to lose Will.”
Smith and Martin Lawrence announced that Bad Boys 4 was officially happening on Jan 31. The franchise stars shared the news on their respective Instagram accounts, posting the same video that they each captioned, “IT’S ABOUT THAT TIME!”
The clip began with Smith recording himself as he drove to Lawrence’s home, telling viewers that he was going to provide a “hint” as to what his big news was — before “Shake Ya Tailfeather” by Nelly, Diddy and Murphy Lee, from the Bad Boys II soundtrack, began playing through the speakers.
“I wish I was you not knowing what I’m about to show me,” the Oscar winner told the camera.
Upon arriving at his costar’s home, Smith greeted Lawrence, 57, who opened the door and asked with a smile, “It’s about that time?”
After the two cheered and embraced, Smith turned the camera on them both and confirmed jubilantly, “It’s about that time!”
“It’s official, y’all,” he continued, confirming production on the fourth film. “Bad boys for life, baby!
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