Q&A: Delaware's DJ Jazzy Jeff previews Firefly

Music just seems to follow DJ Jazzy Jeff.

The Philadelphia-born DJ, who made his mark in the late '80s and early '90s with Will Smith as half of DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, moved to Delaware in 2004.

He was drawn by the low cost of living and the suburban lifestyle of Bear -- all while still being close to plenty of big cities and, more importantly, big-city airports that allow him to jet away to lucrative gigs around the world.

After settling into life in The First State, the music industry soon sprouted in his backyard in the form of the Firefly Music Festival. The festival draws 90,000 music fans to Dover each year, more than any music event in his hometown of Philadelphia.

"When they started it, I thought it was really, really cool. I'm a huge fan of it," says the father of four with children ranging in age from 30 to 7-year-old twins.

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Even though he has never attended or performed at the festival, it's been on his radar for years. After missing it several times due to other obligations, the man born as Jeffrey Townes is ready to show his adopted home state why he's the DJ.

"Since day one I've thought, 'I have to get to Firefly,'" says DJ Jazzy Jeff, 52, who regularly visits spots like Wilmington and Delaware's beaches for dinners with his wife.

Sure, he's performed in Delaware before, spinning everywhere from Ivy in Dewey Beach to the former Moodswing Niteclub near Prices Corner. But he's never had a Delaware gig as big as this -- performing for an hour at Firefly's Pavilion Stage on Saturday, June 17, at 5:15 p.m.

It's been nearly 30 years since he and Smith won the first-ever Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance ("Parents Just Don't Understand") and 21 years since NBC's "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" left the air.Even so, the nostalgia factor runs high with the hip-hop duo, which is backlit by Smith's worldwide star power. The pair will come together for two heavily-anticipated performances in late August after years of promised reunions.

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We recently caught up with DJ Jazzy Jeff to chat about his time as a Delaware resident, his upcoming Firefly set and why Smith's "movie people" don't like him.

Q: It looks like you have a pretty busy summer lined up with a bunch of festival appearances.

A: I normally take summers off to be with my kids and last summer I did a 1-1/2 week festival run. That alerted people that I was out doing summer festivals, so I ended up taking a bunch of them this summer. I had a really good time last summer, so I'm really looking forward to these.

Q: Plus those summer festivals are big money gigs, right?

A: I've been doing festivals for 25 years, but mainly in other parts of the world. It seems that the festival thing has jumped off humongous here in the states. There are so many. It's just a big touring circuit. There are three, four or five a weekend. 

Q: There are some acts that just hop from festival to festival during the summer. It's a way to make money when no one is buying albums.

A:  Absolutely. That's it. That's pretty much what we've come to: you stream the album and go see the music live.

Q: Was it crazy for you when they announced Firefly for Delaware? We all know the size of the state and what acts come through here. The first year had everyone from The Black Keys to Jack White and our jaws kind of hit the ground. Were you surprised a festival that size ended up in Dover?

A: Absolutely not because I am going to Gulf Shores, Alabama, tomorrow for a festival. I've realized that so many of those festivals are in places like that. That's the cool thing about the festival circuit: people will travel. I do a festival every year in Singapore called ZoukOut and I'll bump into people from Baltimore. Before the festival circuit got so big here, I realized festivals aren't for just the locals -- it's for people who want to make a weekend out of it. So I wasn't surprised it ended up in Dover at all. Actually, that's a great place for it.

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Q: The best part of it being in Dover is that you only have a 40-minute drive home.

A: I love it. It's a 40-minute ride home and it's the day before Father's Day. I was like, "Man, somebody gave me a great gift."

Q: Do you remember where your most recent Delaware gig was? 

A: No, I don't. It might have been at the beach. But you know what? One of the things I realized that I think is very genius -- I think out stuff a lot -- Delaware beaches are extremely great. But Delaware beaches don't need guys like me. I realize that going to a club at the beach in the summer in Delaware -- it's already packed. You don't need to worry about entertainment drawing a crowd. So you can basically just have a regular guy in there. 

Q: You're also doing these two festivals -- England's Livewire Festival and MTV Summerblast in Croatia -- with Will Smith in late August. These are the first full-fledged reunion shows, right? 

A: Yeah, it took a minute to get these across the finish line.

Q: I remember hearing you talk last summer about doing an entire tour. I assume it's just a matter of getting your schedules together.

A: That's what I tell everyone. Will is arguably one of the biggest movie stars in the world and has been that for at least 20 years. That schedule in and of itself is maddening. Plus, I do between 160 and 180 dates a year. It's just about getting on the same page. Whenever we get together and talk about it, the desire is always there. So I was extremely happy to be able to get these shows across the line.

Q:  Why did you pick those two festivals? Was it timing? A geographic strategy? 

A: We get offers all the time and when we got these, I knew he was off. I was in L.A. and I went to go see him. I sat down and talked about what I wanted to do and how I wanted the show to go and it got him really excited. He was like, "Yo, let's do it." We were able to green light these shows and I think it shocked everybody because then all these other offers started pouring in. I'm taking baby steps. My job is to get him on stage and to say, "Oh my God, I had so much fun. Let's do it again."

Q: Is the money pretty crazy for these two festivals?

A: Do you know what's funny? We really aren't doing this for the money. I mean we've been offered astronomical amounts of money to do festivals that we turn down. Quietly, the movie people don't like me because I want to pull Will on the stage and you're talking about someone who can potentially make $25 million a movie. That is interfering with a business. He's solely going on tour because he loves it. It's really not about the money. That's why my job is to get him on stage and make him realize how much he misses it so he wants to do it more.  

Q: Are you guys still pretty tight?

A: Yes. We don't have time to spend together like we used to. And that's just life. We both have kids and work. Our relationship is just like it was when we were 17, but we're a lot older now with more responsibilities. But we'll sit down and periodically and have those talks. People think you're used to all of this. We've been doing this for over 30 years and we still look at each other like, "Can you believe this s--t?" It's still very surreal.

Q: Speaking of having responsibilities and children, please tell me that one of your children has thrown "Parents Just Don't Understand" back at you.

A: [Laughs.] No, not in a literal sense. We were joking that I need to let my son and [Will] needs to let Jaden and Willow come out and sing, "Parents Just Don't Understand." We could probably make "Grandparents Just Don't Understand" right now.

Q: What got you to move to Delaware? It's been almost 15 years now.

A: When you're younger, you want to be around a bunch of stuff. For years, I would come down here on weekends with my mom and go to fruit stands and go shopping. And then in the early '90s, I had some friends that moved here and I didn't understand it. But when I finally decided I wanted to leave Philadelphia, I didn't want to go to Jersey and I had friends down here. And it was very peaceful. It takes me 35 minutes to get to Philly. I know people who live in Secaucus, New Jersey, and it takes them 1-1/2 hours to get to New York -- and they're looking at it. It's a better place to raise my kids and I have seven or eight airports I can fly out of. Once I got here and got dug in, I fell in love with it. 

Q:  What was the reaction of your Philadelphia family and friends when you told then you were moving to Delaware?

A: It was funny. When I moved, I didn't really tell anybody. I didn't want people to try to talk me out of it. I was older. I was paying more attention to my taxes and how much I was spending on stuff. And it made sense. When you're 20-something, you're worried about how fast you can get to the club. But then you start to look at your life structure -- looking to work smarter and not harder -- and places like Delaware make a lot of sense.

Contact Ryan Cormier of The News Journal at rcormier@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2863. Follow him on Facebook (@ryancormier), Twitter (@ryancormier) and Instagram (@ryancormier).

IF YOU GO

What: Firefly Music Festival

When: June 15-18

Where: The Woodlands near Dover International Speedway, Dover

Tickets: Four-day passes ($309-$2,499) and single-day passes ($89-$249)

Information: fireflyfestival.com