Will Smith to Release New Album, ‘Based on a True Story’

Hey, that’s as long as it took Bennifer to get back together: Will Smith is ending a 20-year hiatus and dropping his first album since 2005’s Lost and Found. (Hopefully the Fresh Prince’s return to his musical roots goes better than Jennifer Lopez’s return to Ben Affleck did, though.) “Been working on this project for a minute, and I’m itchin’ to get it out to y’all,” Smith said in a March 14 Instagram post. Titled Based on a True Story, the upcoming album features collaborations with DJ Jazzy Jeff, B. Simone, Jac Ross, Teyana Taylor, and Obanga. Art for the project describes each of the 14 tracks — including some previously-released songs like “You Can Make It” and “Work of Art,” featuring his son Jaden — as an “episode.” Smith has previously hinted to Billboard that he is planning an album trilogy that will be like “three seasons of a TV musical show,” which presumably explains the “R.I.T.W.” subtitle on the album cover. Check out the tracklist for the first Based on a True Story below, ahead of its release (season premiere?) on March 28.