Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff’s Summertime song becomes hip-hop musical

The song “Summertime” now shares its name with an upcoming hip-hop musical based on the collaboration of Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff. “Summertime” was the first single from the duo’s fourth studio album, “Homebase,” and earned them a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. While the plot is being kept a secret, we do know that Peter Saji will be making his debut directing and writing the film for Sony Pictures’ Screen Gems.

A television producer and writer, Saji is best known for his work on the episodes of “Black-ish”, “Mixed-ish” and “Cougar Town”. He is notably responsible for two of the musical episodes “Black-ish”: “Juneteenth” and the tribute episode to Prince “Purple Rain”. With “Summertime,” Saji puts his musical writing to work on the big screen to develop everyone’s favorite summer anthem.

Now I know what you are thinking – that’s a terrible idea. And yes, I too want to be instinctively against it, just on the basis of logic. How are they going to pull an intrigue out of this 4 minute clip? Why develop something that is already perfect? All of those points are valid, but let me play devil’s advocate here with the following counter-argument: … Will Smith.

Will Smith’s involvement makes the news a lot easier and makes it hard not to be at least a little excited. With this song and its effortless charm, how could things have gone wrong? We don’t know Smith himself stars in the movie (fingers crossed), but he’s involved in its development. “Summertime” is produced in part by Westbrook Studios, media company Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith who is also working on future Oscar nominee “King Richard”, Antoine Fuqua’s thriller “Emancipation”, the remake “Planes,” Trains & Automobiles “, and more.

“Summertime” has a pretty solid team behind it and an incredibly fun video to work from. And if you don’t believe me, you might have to review the song for yourself.