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Questlove Says Will Smith Dropped Out Of Grammys Hip-Hop Tribute

The 65th Annual Grammy Awards celebrated the 50th anniversary of Hip-Hop Sunday night (Feb. 5). The tribute almost included Will Smith. Questlove, who co-curated the 13-minute long tribute, says that…

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Matt Winkelmeyer/Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

The 65th Annual Grammy Awards celebrated the 50th anniversary of Hip-Hop Sunday night (Feb. 5). The tribute almost included Will Smith. Questlove, who co-curated the 13-minute long tribute, says that the Fresh Prince was originally supposed to be a part of the rappers who showed out to perform.

"I'll give the spoiler alert away. Will Smith was a part of the festivities tonight, but they started shooting Bad Boys 4 already this week," Questlove told Variety. "There's a lot of preliminary shots that he had to do, so we had to lose Will."

The Roots artist understood Smith's need to put Bad Boys 4 first. "It was a shot in the dark," he said. "He's always shooting movies. We had a lot of people and some of them have other jobs."

He continued, "There was a lot of legit reasons why we couldn't be all inclusive of some people."

The four-time Grammy winner added that many artists including the Roots, Ice-T, Queen Latifah, and LL Cool J — all had to "leave their respective shows" in order to participate in hip-hop tribute.

The performance included many legendary artists spanning several generations. Missy Elliott, Run DMC, Salt n Pepa, Public Enemy, Grandmaster Flash, Ice-T, Queen Latifah, Busta Rhymes with Spliff Star, Nelly, GloRilla, Lil Baby, and more took to the stage.

Take a look at the photos from the hip-hop tribute below:

Autumn Hawkins is the National Hip-Hop and R&B writer for Beasley Media, currently residing in New Jersey. Prior to working at Beasley Media, she was in broadcast news as an entertainment producer. When she's not impatiently waiting for Beyoncé to drop new music, she is reading, shopping, or planning a vacation.