the grammy awards

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The Grammy Awards gave a proper tribute to Hip-Hop during the broadcast, but some noted that one of the genre’s first superstars was noticeably absent. Will Smith didn’t show up for the tribute despite his partner DJ Jazzy Jeff being present, and Questlove explained the situation during an interview.

The culture was on full display for Hip-Hop’s 50th anniversary and the star-studded tribute directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson was largely a crowd-pleasing moment for fans in attendance and at home. As we noted above, Jazzy Jeff was there on the 1s and 2s but there was no sighting of the former Fresh Prince. Questlove shared exclusively with Variety why Will Smith didn’t make it to the tribute.

“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 told the outlet on the red carpet. “There were a lot of preliminary shots that he had to do, so we had to lose Will.”
Along with Will Smith, Questlove teased that the original tribute runtime was cut down from 23 minutes to 14 minutes due to scheduling conflicts and the like.
Check out the quip from Questlove regarding Will Smith and the tribute overall below.
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