Will Smith has been revealing things about the late singer Prince. According to Smith, who appeared on the Broken Record podcast this week with Justin Richmond, he and Prince had talked about starting an entertainment company with JAY-Z, but the legendary singer died a few hours later.
According to the “Men in Black” star, he had also met Biggie Smalls just hours before his passing in 1997.
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“I talked to Prince and he was pitching, saying that me, him and Jay-Z should start an entertainment company and he said he had talked to Jay and he wanted to do it,” Smith shared in part. “And we talked that night, and in the morning, he was gone. I don’t know what that says about me. I’m like, ‘Oh, no. Don’t call me, don’t call me.’”
“I don’t even want to say this out loud ’cause it’s like a terrible jinx. I met Biggie four hours before he got killed, and I talked to Prince eight hours before he died,” he said, before revealing the Minnesota icon had a business idea for him and Jay-Z.
He added, “The Biggie one made me cry, ’cause it was like stupid and it was like just centered on hip-hop—for rapping,” Smith said of the reason Big was killed. “That one hurt me. It scared me too.”
According to HipHopDX, Smith and Jay-Z have since collaborated on various projects through their own companies instead of under a single business.
In 2020, Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment and Jay’s Roc Nation partnered to adapt the tale of Emmett Till and his mother Mamie Till Mobley for a larger audience.
The limited series was announced on the 65th anniversary of Till’s murder by two white men in Mississippi on August 28, 1955. After Till’s passing, the Civil Rights Movement began, culminating in the 1963 March on Washington and the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1965.
Additionally, the two entertainment titans invested in Landis Technologies in 2021 to assist thousands of tenants in becoming homeowners.
A group of investors, including Roc Nation and Smith’s Dreamers VC, assisted Landis in raising more than $165 million. They announced that the money will be used to buy approximately 1,000 residences. The company will then rent the property to low-income families until they are approved for a mortgage.
Aside from his financial efforts, Smith is currently promoting Based on a True Story, his first album in almost two decades.
