Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith from the Fresh Prince. Photo / Getty
Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith from the Fresh Prince. Photo / Getty
DJ Jazzy Jeff was once one of the biggest hip hop and TV stars of the nineties.
Thirty years ago, the iconic musician and his superstar collaborator Will Smith made headlines when they took the dramatic step of boycotting the 1989 Grammy Awards.
The pair, who were nominated for best rap performance for their hit song Parents Just Don't Understand, were outraged that the awards ceremony wouldn't televise their award category.
DJ Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith. Photo / Getty
The snub was seen as part of the industry's larger problem with accepting rap music, and the African-American community who produced it.
DJ Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith won the Grammy that year, but weren't there to collect it, having made a stand along with other nominees from their category that year.
"We chose to boycott," Smith said at the time, and called the choice not to televise the award a "slap in the face".
"You go to school for 12 years, they give you your diploma, and they deny you that walk down the aisle."
"A lot of the Grammy committee was 60-year-old white men that didn't understand this brand-new genre," Jeff said recently of the bold decision.
"At that time, hip-hop was just starting to break out of the mindset that it was going to die next year."
DJ Jazzy Jeff performs on day 1 of Lovebox Festival at Victoria Park on July 14, 2017 in London, England. Photo / Getty
The boycott was an incendiary moment in music and hip hop by two of the biggest stars of the day.
And while Will Smith remains one of the most well-known celebrities in the world, you'd be forgiven for wondering what happened to DJ Jazzy Jeff in three decades since that moment.
🎶DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince released their debut studio album 'Rock the House' 32 years ago today, April 7, 1987 pic.twitter.com/xoQmtg1pzO
Born in Philadelphia in 1965, Jeffrey Allen Townes first became interested in DJing when he was just ten years old. Forming a rap group with his childhood friend Will Smith, the two were quick to find success as DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince.
Their debut album, Rock The House, which they recorded with legendary producer Russell Simmons, was released in 1987.
For the release they won two Grammys, firstly for Parents Just Dont Understand in 1987, and for a second hit single Summertime in 1991. When DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince won their first Grammy, Jeff wept. He had only $500 in his bank account.
In 1990 NBC had offered to build a sitcom around Will Smith, which they would call The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Jazzy Jeff signed on too and became a recurring character, playing Smith's best friend named Jazz. He appeared throughout all six seasons of the show from 1990 to 1996.
Jeff didn't go on to pursue an acting career after Fresh Prince, unlike Smith, but together they released several albums, including He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper which went triple platinum in the US, Homebase, which went Platinum in the US and Code Red which went Gold.
The pair remain friends in 2008 they said the group never split up. Jeff, has recorded numerous records for Smith as a producer.
Jeff has had an extensive music career of his own, and worked with a number of big name artists, including Eminem, Mac Miller, Talib Kweli and The Roots, as well as continuing to work with his good friend Smith.
He and Smith still "perform together maybe like four or five times a year, just on different occasions" and remain close friends, Jeff told EW. Jeff said from the day they met, Smith was "never lacking in ideas and content."
Jeff even toured the east coast of Australia last year, and the prolific artist will this year be performing at a Coachella Playlist BBQ event.
Reflecting on how his friendship with Smith has developed over the last thirty years, Jeff said the two still spend time together regularly, and spend more time talking about their kids now.
"We catch-up a lot, it's definitely different with our careers, family and kids," he told Metro.co.uk in March.
"It's amazing me looking at Jaden and Willow (Will's youngest children) and how much they've grown, and him looking at my kids and how much they've grown."
Jeff has five children - two sons, and three daughters, including twin girls. Jeff said taking a stand against the Grammy snub was important for him at the time because artists had comparatively little voice thirty years ago.
"I think it's important that artists have their own voice now which I think is really cool," he said.
"For me, it's this balance of power when it came down to the industry that the artists were the ones with the least amount of power. I think you're starting to see a shift."
He said social media available today would have been both a positive and a negative for him and Smith as young artists.
"It would've fit perfect but also, it would have put a microscope on so much of the stuff that we were trying to figure out as we were coming along.
"Will and I always talk about it. We say, "OMG, could you imagine if we had the tools today when we were making records?" We'd probably have made 10,000 more records just to have the ability to release it whenever you want. That would have been awesome."
"We have a lot more to talk about but we don't get to us as much or as fast as we used to. Now it's really about family, and "Hey, I'm shooting this movie", and "Oh, I'm going to come down and see you but I've got to go on tour"."
Reflecting on their early success, Jeff noted the irony of the title of their first hit song Parents Just Don't Understand, and said it's been a pleasant role reversal for him and Smith.
"We definitely laugh about where we are now.
"We're the ones who makes the records about parents not understanding and now we're the parents."
