Questlove had a tall order in pulling collectively the mind-bending 14-minute tribute to hip-hop historical past at Sunday night time’s (Feb. 5) 2023 Grammy Awards. Tasked with telling the story of the style that has given him a profession and produced among the most iconic music and performers of the previous half-century, the Roots drummer appeared far-and-wide — from the West coast to the East coast, over to Philly and right down to Atlanta and past — to make sure that the breadth of the style was well-represented.
There’s one voice, although, that didn’t make it to the stage to carry out alongside Large Boi, Ice-T, Missy Elliott, Lil Child, Technique Man, Future, De La Soul, Grandmaster Flash, Run-DMC and the opposite legends. Quest informed Selection that he invited Will Smith to make a particular shock look on the occasion that featured Smith’s longtime musical accomplice DJ Jazzy Jeff — who rocked the bells with LL Cool J — however that the rapper-turned-actor needed to again out because of the filming scheduled for his fourquel, Unhealthy Boys 4.
“I’ll give the spoiler alert away. Will Smith was part of the festivities tonight, however they began taking pictures Unhealthy Boys 4 already this week,” Quest mentioned on the purple carpet, the place he revealed that the “all-inclusive” vibe he was searching for within the section initially got here in at 27 minutes earlier than producers requested him to chop in manner down. “There’s loads of preliminary pictures that he needed to do, so we needed to lose Will. That was gonna be a shock second.”
Quest mentioned the invite was “a shot at nighttime,” and that he understood the no-show as a result of, “he’s all the time taking pictures films. We had lots of people and a few of them produce other jobs.” For instance, he famous that the Roots needed to get former David Letterman bandleader Paul Shaffer to fill-in for them on The Tonight Present final week in order that they may put together for Sunday night time’s rap tribute.
Whereas Smith was finally a scratch, if he had flown in it might have been the Oscar-winner’s first awards present look since final 12 months’s surprising incident on the 2022 Oscars the place he slapped comic Chris Rock — shortly earlier than Questlove accepted an Academy Award for finest documentary for his movie Summer season of Soul. Final week Smith introduced that he and Martin Lawrence can be re-teaming for Unhealthy Boys 4.
