Will Smith appears to have been spotted moshing to tech-metal darlings Animals As Leaders at an intimate show for his daughter’s birthday.
Footage of the Academy Award-winning actor and Grammy-winning rapper seemingly going wild to the Washington DC band at a private party on Halloween was shared on Instagram by New York drummer Marco Cirigliano. Watch below.
The short clip shows the Independence Day and Men In Black star smiling, jumping and nudging into others, to the sound of virtuoso soloing from the progressive three-piece. According to Cirigliano, he was there to celebrate his daughter Willow’s 26th birthday.
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Willow is an actor and musician who attained early success with her 2010 hip-hop single Whip My Hair, before transitioning into alt-rock and pop-punk in the 2020s. Her latest albums, this year’s Petal Rock Black and The Thread, were more experimental efforts with jazz and progressive sounds.
Willow, who releases her music mononymously, spoke about her love for rock during a 2022 Guitar World interview, calling the genre “expansive”.
“People focus on pop-punk a lot,” she said. “We all love pop-punk, it’s beautiful and amazing. But let’s not forget the metal, thrash and classic rock. There are all these different forms that rock takes and all these different feelings it can express. This album [that year’s Coping Mechanism] is a love letter to all the flavours rock can have, from Smashing Pumpkins to Lamb Of God.”
Willow’s foray into music follows her father’s success in the medium. 58-year-old Will broke through as a rapper with his hip-hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff And The Fresh Prince, whose 1988 album He’s The DJ, I’m The Rapper has been certified three-times Platinum in the US, before parlaying that success into a film and TV career via 90s sitcom The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air.
Since attracting widespread controversy in 2022 by slapping Chris Rock onstage at the Academy Awards, Will has returned to music. You Can Make It, his first solo single since 2005, came out in 2024, followed by the album Based On A True Story in 2025. The album was met with mixed reviews and reached no.79 on the UK Album Downloads chart.
Meanwhile, Animals As Leaders released their latest album, Parrhesia, in 2022 and are working on a follow-up.
“We are about to begin pre-production on an album,” guitarist Tosin Abasi told Guitar World last year. “We do have some touring – we’re headed to Europe in a few weeks – but I want to spend a portion of this year writing the record. In a perfect world, it’ll be written and recorded by the end of this year.”
Willow is seemingly close friends with the instrumental band. In August, the musician posted a slideshow to Instagram depicting her and Abasi playing the double-neck guitar/bass of Angine de Poitrine member Khn de Poitrine. “HOLY SHIT!!!!” she excitedly wrote as a caption.