49 pages • 1 hour read
Will
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 5-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “Hope”
Smith’s mother and brother move back in with the rest of the family. His mother is determined to get all of her children into college. Smith decides not to go to his friend’s party because he had been the DJ for her previous parties, but this year she chose someone else. Will learns from his friend Ready Rock that the other DJ is Jazzy Jeff. The two head to the party because they want to battle with Jazzy Jeff and his MC, MC Ice. Jeff began DJing when he was 10 years old and is still considered one of the best DJs in the world today. Unlike other DJs, who could often be flashy, Jazzy Jeff is more subdued. When MC Ice does not show up to the party, Smith MCs for Jazzy Jeff. This is the first time Smith ever feels like he is truly in the zone with his music; that night marks the beginning of a partnership that still exists today. Smith considers these early days with Jeff to be one of the most creative periods of his life.
One night, James Lassiter, JL, shows up as Smith and Jeff are rehearsing. JL is in law school, and he spends his evenings watching Jeff DJ. Jeff is invited to compete at the annual New Music Seminar Battle for World Supremacy. Grandmaster Caz, Smith’s idol, is considered “the undisputed favorite for the MC competition” (86). As suspected, he wins the MC portion of the competition, and Jazzy Jeff wins the DJ portion. Smith decides not to go to college because the world of hip-hop will open up many possibilities for him.
Jeff and Smith begin to hand out cassettes they create to anybody they can. They connect with a wealthy man named Dana Goodman who becomes their manager. Goodman has no company and few connections, but he has money, and he decides to make a record with Smith and Jeff. Goodman has input into the songs, and he disagrees with the artists at times about how the songs should go. Still, Goodman does all he can, even selling the records out of his car. Due to his lack of resources, however, he cannot get their music in stores. Eventually, JL becomes their manager.
Smith stops going to classes regularly because his dreams now lie in the hip-hop world, but his mother tells him that he cannot be a rapper; it is only a hobby. Education saved his mother’s life, and she believes it will protect her children. Smith believes performing saved his life. Daddio is caught in the middle of the disagreement between Smith and Mom-Mom. Finally, the three agree that Will can pursue his music for a year. If it does not work out, he will go to college. When Mom-Mom calls the University of Wisconsin to seek a deferment for Smith’s acceptance, the dean tells her that he believes it is a great idea because of the life experience he will gain in the endeavor. Smith begins to doubt himself and wonder if his mother is right. He feels like he has let her down again, and he wonders if he should, indeed, go to college. As Smith feels down on himself for needing to call his father because he forgot his keys, he hears his song on the radio for the first time.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Ignorance”
During his last month of high school, Smith and Jazzy Jeff’s “Girls Ain’t Nothing but Trouble” is a hit on the radio. They create a record, but they do not like Goodman’s influence on the songs. They go on tour “opening for Public Enemy and 2 Live Crew” (107). JL is the oldest person on the tour, and Omarr, a dancer, is the youngest. They invite their largest friend, Charlie Mack, to be their security. Smith remains committed to Melanie; he is never interested in being with many different women. He tells those on tour with him that he does not want a lot of women hanging around. He wants to propose to Melanie. This is a period of learning for the group, and he understands that life is about going into the unknown.
Because Smith was underage when he signed the contract with Goodman, the contract is not valid. Goodman is furious when Jeff and Smith leave him, and he shows up in front of Smith’s house with a gun. He sits in the car until Willard comes out and tells him that if he kills Will, he will have to kill all of them. Willard then goes back into the house, and Goodman drives away.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Adventure”
Smith describes this period as one of the greatest periods in his life as well as the golden age of hip-hop. It is also at this time that he discovers how important travel is for learning new perspectives. In 1987, Smith and Jeff have a tour planned in London when Jeff gets in an accident. The doctors tell him that he cannot travel to London, but he goes anyway. Smith and Jeff create the first-ever double hip-hop album because the studio likes so much of their music. They do not concern themselves with radio play and MTV. They just enjoy making music together.
Things start to change quickly in hip-hop. Smith spends a lot of time with Charlie Mack because the two both love to be the center of attention and have very high self-regard. Because of Charlie’s influence, Smith begins to get violent with people who criticize him, something that happens frequently because people in the hip-hop scene often think Smith is not Black enough or that his music is soft. Will and Jeff boycott the ceremony when they win the first Grammy for hip-hop because the Grammy committee refuses to show the award on television. Smith buys his grandmother a new home, and he and Melanie move into Gigi’s old home. Smith is on top of the world because he has gotten Melanie her first safe home.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Pain”
Will learns that Melanie has cheated on him. He sees it as a sign that he has failed Melanie. He responds with promiscuity. This is contrary to his nature, and he begins to gag and vomit whenever he orgasms. Smith buys a home in Merion Park. He is ready to take Melanie back because he believes her cheating was due to a defect in him. He goes into her place of work and instantly realizes who she cheated on him with. He fights the man, and Melanie comes home with him. Smith spends a lot of time with drug dealers. There are always people at Smith’s home, and they gamble a lot. He wins a car from his friend Bucky, but Smith gives it back to him. He shows Daddio his many cars to impress him. He and Jazzy Jeff receive a Grammy for rap performance.
Smith loves to hang out in LA, and he meets Tanya Moore there. When JL confronts him about all the fighting he has been doing lately, he breaks down over his romantic difficulties with Melanie. Smith understands that people often blame their unhappiness on their lack of money or success. People with success, however, are forced to confront the idea that they might be the root of their own problems.
Smith and Jeff go to the Bahamas to record, but they waste their money and get nothing done. When they refuse to listen to JL’s warnings that they need to record, JL contacts Daddio, who comes in and intervenes. Smith and Jeff finish their album in two weeks. The album does not do well.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Destruction”
Hip-hop is changing as Smith’s newest album performs poorly. Clate, otherwise known as Ready Rock C, believes that he is the most important part of what he, Jeff, and Smith create because he is a top beatboxer, but beatboxing is going out of style. One night when it is time for Ready to come out and perform, he does not show up. Smith never calls for Ready on stage again.
Smith spends time in LA with Tanya. The two are close but have not yet kissed. Smith is important in the world of hip-hop, but he is a nobody in LA. He and Charlie Mack get turned away from a club, and Smith vows that this is the last time that will ever happen. Smith loses all of his material goods to the IRS because he failed to pay his taxes. He and Melanie break up. Smith leaves town because of an FBI investigation into some people he is hanging around with, and Bucky dies three days later.
Chapters 5-9 Analysis
The early chapters of this section introduce the people who will make up Smith’s inner circle throughout his professional career. He meets Jazzy Jeff, JL, and Mack, all of whom will continue to be influences throughout the rest of the book up until the present day. By showing the lifelong relationships Smith has with these men, he demonstrates that his music and acting careers grow out of a small group of people working together toward a common goal. He adds many more professionals to his team over the years, but as he explains throughout the book, his goal is always to create opportunities so he can bring others along with him on his rise to the top. Not everyone he starts with will stay with him forever, but these three men do. As such, they remain influences throughout the memoir.
The chapters about Smith’s years in the hip-hop industry expand the theme of The Importance of Words and Stories. Because Smith is one of the pioneers of hip-hop, this part of his memoir is simultaneously a personal history and a written record of the role he and others from Philly play in the development of the hip-hop genre. He describes how his music evolves and says that while he cringes at times hearing his early work now, he knows that he and Jazzy Jeff were doing truly revolutionary things at the time. Smith is set apart from other hip-hop acts because he refuses to include profanity in his work, but he is still part of the evolution of the art form. He rises as hip-hop rises. In this section of his story, Smith gives his reader an inside view into the industry and how an art form that has now been around for many decades grew from block parties in Philadelphia. This is especially important for younger readers who know Smith as an actor but do not know as much about his earlier years or what music was like before hip-hop and rap became popular and mainstream. This section of the memoir enacts Smith’s lifelong goal to create opportunities for others through his own success. By telling the story of hip-hop alongside his own stories, Smith educates readers about the genre he loves and invites them to understand and be inspired by it.
A recurring motif in the book is the pull Smith feels between two different worlds. Earlier in the memoir, he felt pulled between his white Catholic school and his Black neighborhood. He felt too Black for the white kids and not Black enough for the Black kids. In these chapters, he feels a similar pull in the rap world. Profanity is a common piece of the genre, but Smith refuses to include curse words or vulgar descriptions in his music. His refusal reveals a difference in values between him and other rappers; for Smith, the importance of words and stories should be honored by using language that will not offend or alienate others. The pressure he feels from other artists who label him soft or not Black enough gets to him, however, and as a young man, he reacts with violence when criticized for failing to live up to the persona most rap artists at the time presented. When called soft, he starts to physically fight back. This denotes a change in the way he responds to adversity, and he attributes a lot of this change to the influence of Mack. Smith will continue to struggle with the tension between who people expect him to be and who he is for many years as he feels pulled between two different worlds.
Cars are another recurrent motif throughout the memoir. When Smith becomes a successful hip-hop artist, he begins to collect expensive cars as symbols of his wealth and status. Two incidents in these chapters illustrate the significance cars take on for Smith, as well as their connection to the theme Money and Fame Cannot Buy Happiness. In the first incident, Smith and his friend Bucky make a bet with their cars as stakes. When Smith wins, he gives Bucky’s car back to him. Bucky is surprised by this because, he says, he would not have done the same if he had won. This incident shows that even though Smith has entered a new, more materialistic social circle, he still holds on to many of the values he had before. As such, this commitment to doing the right thing is a persevering personality trait inherent in who he is and how he sees himself. In the second incident, Smith tries to impress his father by showing off how many cars he has bought. His father remains unmoved, however, pointing out that he can only drive one at a time. Along with Smith’s reflections on discovering he had problems even after he was wealthy and successful, these two episodes pave the way for Smith’s realization that money and fame cannot buy happiness. Though cars signal his success to others around him, they cannot bring him authentic joy or peace.
Unlock all 49 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Featured Collections
Books About Art
View Collection
Creative Nonfiction
View Collection
Family
View Collection
Inspiring Biographies
View Collection
New York Times Best Sellers
View Collection
Self-Help Books
View Collection
The Best of "Best Book" Lists
View Collection
The Power & Perils of Fame
View Collection