Superstar Will Smith is ushering in the
21st century with Willennium, the anxiously-awaited follow-up to Big
Willie Style, Smith's 6x RIAA-platinum debut solo album on Columbia Records.
Released on November 25, 1997, Big Willie Style spent 96 weeks on
the Billboard 200 Best-Selling Albums chart, with some 72 of those weeks
in the Top 40. The album kicked out several hits including "Just The Two
Of Us," "Men In Black," Miami," and "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It," which became
the #1 Pop and #1 Rap single in the U.S. Driven by tracks like "Wild Wild
West" and the millennium party anthem "Will 2K," Willennium promises
to echo the success of its predecessor.
Will Smith got his start
in show business in Philadelphia at the age of 12 when he began to rap at
house and block parties. Calling themselves "DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh
Prince," Will and Jeff Townes cut their debut album Rock The
House and spawned the hit "Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble." The duo's
next album, He's The DJ, I'm The Rapper, featured the smash "Parents
Just Don't Understand" which made them, in 1988, the first-ever winners of
a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance.
Smith's showmanship and charisma led to
NBC's hit television series "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air," created for Smith
by Quincy Jones. His natural acting ability quickly led Smith into
feature films including Made In America, Where The Day Takes You,
the Oscar-nominated Six Degrees of Separation and 1995's box-office
smash Bad Boys. Smith has starred in two of the ten all-time
top-grossing films worldwide: 1996's record-breaking summer hit Independence
Day, and 1997's #1 Men In Black. He appeared in two of 1999's
most significant film releases: Wild Wild West and Enemy Of The
State.
"Historically, rap music has been a genre of disposable
artists and one-hit summers. From one summer to the next, there's no telling
who's gonna be out here," says Will Smith. "I feel blessed at this
point in my career to still be getting better. Willennium is unequivocally
the best work of my career."