According to an in-depth cover interview with GQ, Will Smith remembered a series of psychedelic experiences in Peru, and his new memoir Will, set to hit shelves on November 9, will describe the encounters in further detail. 

According to GQ, his tell-all Will, will provide the most unpolished version of Smith’s personal story yet—including the details he probably would’ve never shared as his kids were growing up. 

Smith’s team recruited Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, while the actor was filming Gemini Man. In his book, he wanted to finally share with the world the good, bad and ugly parts of himself. New Orleans-based artist Brandan “BMike” Odums designed the cover of WILL.

While Smith was rising to stardom rapping and starring on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, he maintained a squeaky clean image. He mostly set aside partying to fully focus on his career in show business—not even smoking weed, and limited drinking to very little. But Smith slowly realized his hyperfocus on his career took a toll on friendships and relationships. As he got older, he constantly re-evaluated where he stood.

Few people could understand his unique position as a leading star. “Throughout the years, I would always call Denzel [Washington]. He’s a real sage,” Smith told GQ. “I was probably 48 or something like that and I called Denzel. He said, ‘Listen. You’ve got to think of it as the funky 40. Everybody’s 40s are funky.’ He said, ‘But just wait till you hit the fuck-it 50s.’”

“He said, ‘Just bear with your 40s.’ I stopped and I was like, ‘The funky 40s and the fuck-it 50s,’” Smith said. “And that’s exactly what happened. It just became the fuck-it 50s, and I gave myself the freedom to do whatever I wanted to do.”

So Smith took that newfound freedom and experimented, traveling to foreign countries without security guards, and he made his way to Peru to embark on “more than a dozen ayahuasca rituals.”

Apparently Smith was highly impacted by the ayahuasca experiences. “This was my first tiny taste of freedom,” Smith wrote, describing his first experience. “In my 50 plus years on this planet, this is the unparalleled greatest feeling I’ve ever had.”

According to results from the Global Ayahuasca Project survey, about 85 percent of people who take ayahuasca go on to make a profound life change. Ayahuasca literally means “the vine of death”—an Amazonian brew that is a bit more than a recreational psychedelic trip. Many people travel to areas near the Amazonian metropolis of Iquitos, Peru, to find these experiences and be led by a shaman who can guide them properly.

Ayahuasca is a drink that must contain at least two ingredients: One that utilizes the monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) properties of an Amazon rainforest vine Banisteriopsis caapi, and another to allow the potent hallucinogen N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), found in a variety of rainforest plants like Psychotria viridis (chacruna), to become active in your brain. In other words, the first ingredient is actuated by the second.

Smith’s son Jaden also opened up to the media about his “journeys on psychedelics,” which apparently also heavily inspired his latest music releases.

As half of the duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, things really took off in 1990 when he was cast as the star role of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, taking Jazzy Jeff along for the ride. But most people don’t know that the show contained minor bits of truth, reflecting Smith’s own brushes with the law in West Philadelphia, just after receiving a Grammy Award for “Parents Just Don’t Understand.”

Smith’s astronomical career has become a source of inspiration for many. One particular video, for instance, went viral as it was considered to be a powerful speech about overcoming fear, doubt and people not believing in you.

Listen to Smith live, as he kicks off a book tour of his new memoir WILL—in a limited number of major cities throughout the world.

The post Will Smith Recalls Life-Changing Psychedelic Experiences in New Book appeared first on High Times.

The post Will Smith Recalls Life-Changing Psychedelic Experiences in New Book appeared first on Paradise Found.

High as a Kite: A Guide to Marijuana is not, as its many co-authors have stressed, “a guide to growing marijuana” but “a collaborative effort by creatives to showcase the beauty of cannabis through tattoos.”

Here’s another way of putting it: High as a Kite, a collection of cannabis-related tattoo art collected from across the country, is an extremely dope must-have new coffee table book born from the passion—and imagination—of a Houston-based tattoo artist named Danny G.  

For most of his early life, Danny, who was born in Colombia and raised in Texas, didn’t know how to draw and had never picked up a paintbrush, but he was so obsessed with the look of and ideas behind tattoos that he reverse-engineered the process.

After putting his mom under considerable pressure from the rest of the family when he convinced her to buy him a tattoo kit at 14, Danny discovered an extensive and supportive community hidden in the tattoo industry.

This community stretched from New York to Los Angeles, with stops like Chicago, Denver and Ohio in between—and Danny explored them all as a traveling tattoo artist taking on freelance assignments.

When asked about his favorite spots, he finds himself torn between Baltimore and Detroit. Baltimore—because customers from more than three different states flock to the little seaside town like moths.

Detroit—not sure, but he is aware of the fact that the still recovering city has a certain allure that has kept on drawing him back over the years. In fact, when we rang him up for this article, that’s where he was. 

Traveling from state to state, Danny was able to take a closer look at all the artwork that was being made by tattoo artists from across America. In an age where social media did not exist and art couldn’t be promoted online, this was quite an eye-opening experience.

Other creative industries whose visual artwork won’t or can’t be exhibited inside museums—like film, television and even video games—commonly release said visual artwork in the form of big, encyclopedic art books sold online and in bookstores.

In the tattoo world—being more of a loosely connected string of small, largely independent shops rather than a tightly interconnected and meticulously organized industry—it was difficult to amass the resources necessary to make such books.

The best approach to doing so was a grassroots one, and that’s exactly what Danny ended up doing: by asking artists—whether starting, working or long-retired—to contribute some of their favorite, weed-related pieces.

Because every tattoo artist has their own unique sense of style, Danny figured that, by giving the book a single theme, he would be able to piece the images together into a cohesive whole, making them easier for readers/viewers to digest.

He also couldn’t have picked a more fitting theme. Tattoo artists love weed as much as the next friendly neighborhood stoner does, not to mention both artform and flower have long been indispensable components of American counterculture.

Every time I get to interview an artist for this particular magazine, I simply have to ask them if they smoke during work, if smoking affects their creative process and how it factors into everything they do and make.

Danny gives me a sobering, simple answer: “I’d rather be high than not.” It also helps him get into that Zen-like state in which tattoo artists effortlessly pull off the most delicate hand movements without breaking a sweat.

That’s not to say you can get “high as a kite” for every job, though. Danny recalls how, when he got off the probation he was put on after he got arrest in San Antonio for weed possession, the first thing he did was light up like there’s no tomorrow.

This would have been fine, had he not arranged to tattoo an image of M.C. Escher-level complexity onto the back of someone’s neck moments after finishing his last joint. Danny’s advice: don’t smoke too much—at least, not until you’re done with the linework.

High as a Kite is not only offering tattoo artists a way to exhibit their work to large amounts of people, but the book also enables its readers to enjoy said work without having to put it on their bodies first. 

As for Danny himself, he’s doing the best he can to help the tattoo world stay connected—a goal that, he says, has already become much, much, easier to accomplish thanks to social media platforms like Instagram.

Another thing that’s worth noting is that 10 percent of all proceeds made from High as a Kite sales are donated to the Last Prisoner Project, a non-profit organization that provides legal advice to and lobbies on behalf of people who have been incarcerated for cannabis-related crimes.

For Danny, whose previous collaborations and projects donated money to food banks and homeless shelters, this cause feels particularly personal. While he walked away from the same ordeal with only a probation, others have been put behind bars for years.

“It’s only fair,” Danny says. “If you’re making money off weed, you should do your part helping.” A man of his word, pre-orders for High as a Kite went live on 4/20 and quickly raked in more than 900 requests. 

As fresh prints of the book are arriving from overseas, Danny has his eyes set on the second volume. He already knows the theme: psychedelics. He says he did ayahuasca when he was “little,” so he’s looking forward to that.

The post Stoners Fly ‘High as a Kite’ with New Marijuana Tattoo Collection Book appeared first on High Times.

The post Stoners Fly ‘High as a Kite’ with New Marijuana Tattoo Collection Book appeared first on Paradise Found.