Don't really know anything about Will Smith or Hammer,but didn't Will get accepted to MIT? I believe Will would have found a safe opportunity especially when you consider his tax problems before the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Anything is possible but I don't see Will moving drugs to survive or any illegal activity.
In any case. I wouldn't call where I lived hood but it was hood adjacent. I had family members who took part in illegal activities and friends who did the same. I've known people from what I would consider bad hoods. I never took part in any illegal activities and neither did alot of the people from worst neighborhoods. Being from the hood doesn't necessarily make you hood.
If I'm reading your statement correctly, it is a very ignorant thing to say even if we are talking about rappers.
That's not what I intended, but reading my comments now I understand why it looks that way.
What I meant to get across was pretty much what you said. In some neighborhoods even if you're not a criminal you are still surrounded by family and friends who are.
Now imagine if later on in life you achieved some level of fame and fortune and now everybody is pointing a finger at you because you're a friend of so-and-so who just went to jail. got the police running around saying that you are involved in what they are because the two of you have been seen together or maybe you gave them a shout out on a song. Got the whole world wondering why you just can't give up "the life" with such a promising career on the horizon.
That was the kind of ignorance I was trying to address.
The entire system is fucked the way they do RICO and conspiracy type cases.


