By now, most of you reading this are aware of the slap heard and seen around the world. Last night (Mar. 27), Will Smith walked onstage during this year’s Oscars and proceeded to slap Chris Rock, who made an unsavory joke about Smith’s wife Jada mere moments prior. Since then, social media (specifically, Twitter) has been ablaze with responses that ran across the board, and fellow hip hop artists made sure to chime in on the debate as well.
Naturally, 50 Cent couldn’t help himself, making light of the incident with a few tweets of his own:
“B!tch don’t you ever play with me. LOL … You have to win Oscars to do this kinda shit. after i win i’m gonna slap the shit out of a few people. LOL”
Fabolous also jumped in the proverbial fray, and even made fun of himself in process in regards to his current events-style of subject matter in his music:
“Chris Rock is a real professional cuz ain’t no way.. ain’t no way bruh … Any studios open ?”
Unfortunately, many did feel that the Smith-Rock conflict overshadowed what took place immediately after — Questlove winning his first Oscar for his universally acclaimed documentary Summer of Soul, a film based on the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. With that said, many of his peers make sure to put a spotlight on what amounts to an iconic achievement for The Roots musician. Someone running LL Cool J’s Rock The Bells Twitter account praised Questlove, and even quoted from his emotional speech:
“Congrats to #SummerofSoulMovie and @questloveon winning the Academy Award for “Best Documentary Feature”. #Oscars … “This is about marginalized people in Harlem that needed to heal from pain,” The Roots legend said as he accepted during his acceptance speech for #SummerofSoul”
Check out the aforementioned and many more tweets from the night below — including one from Will Smith’s son Jaden, who had little problem showing support for his family.