Monster Complex ™

View Original

Will Smith vs Freddy Krueger—and the courts

Chris Well

Before he was a movie star, Will Smith was popular rapper The Fresh Prince—and his hip-hop hit “A Nightmare on My Street” riffs on an imagined encounter with monster Freddy Krueger. In fact, over the suspenseful beat, you can hear samples of Charles Bernstein’s musical riff from A Nightmare on Elm Street.

The third single from DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s second studio album, He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper, the song was originally considered to be included in the movie A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. However, the film’s producers decided to go another way. Scroll down to watch the music video. And scroll down further to find out why it’s so amazing the video even exists…

DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince - “A Nightmare On My Street”

New Line Cinema, copyright holders of the A Nightmare on Elm Street films, sued DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s record label over this song. In fact, they forced them to destroy the music video—the only reason you can watch it now is because it had a very short broadcast span, and somebody, somewhere had made a copy.

Both sides eventually settled out of court. However, the album He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper contain a disclaimer that the song is not official or approved by the makers of Nightmare on Elm Street.

Related: The lost Fresh Prince ‘Nightmare on My Street’ video has reemerged on YouTube (The Verge)

More from Monster Complex