By Chad Kiser  (AllHipHop Features) Musical icon, producer extraordinaire, and Philadelphia native DJ Jazzy Jeff first steeped on the scene in the late 1980’s when he hooked up with Will Smith, a brash and exuberant emcee known as The Fresh Prince (who would also become one oh Hollywood’s biggest stars) to form the hip-hop duo of DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. The pair would go on to release hip-hop’s first Grammy Award-winning song, “Parents Just Don’t Understand” in 1989, which catapulted their careers to another level neither could have predicted. Over the next 30 years, DJ Jazzy Jeff would conquer the world of entertainment in numerous ways. Whether he was introducing the transformer scratch to the world, playing Will Smith’s comic foil during episodes from the long-running television show “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”, or producing the summertime jam of all summertime jams ever with DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s “Summertime” record, Jeff Townes has become an indisputable legend. DJ Jazzy Jeff recently released his 11 Summertime mixtape with MICK, Summertime 2020, in association with The quintessential California Rosé, Summer Water, and is accessible now exclusively through the Summer Water website In this AllHipHop exclusive interview with Chad Kiser, DJ Jazzy Jeff discusses his 11 Summertime mixtape with MICK, Summertime 2020, working with Will Smith on songs like “Brand New Funk” and “Summertime”, getting Mike Tyson and Don King in the “I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson” video, working with Dr. Dre on the 2015 “Straight Outta Compton” film and so much more! AllHipHop: Firstly, we’re glad to see you’ve recovered well from the Corona Virus. How are you feeling? Jazzy Jeff: I’m great! I was one of the early people to catch it in March, and I got sick so early that they didn’t even really know what it was. It was the sickest that I have ever been in my life. It’s thanks to my wife that I’m here today. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been so vocal about people wearing masks and practicing social distancing because I understand how real it is. As sick as I was, it trips me out how people think that this is not real. AllHipHop: Well let’s hop right into the latest, “Summertime Mixtape 2020”, with MICK — Tell me about putting this together, and partnering with Summer Water? Jazzy Jeff: The funny thing is that we almost didn’t do it. We were blessed eleven years ago when Mick came to me and said, “Hey, I got an idea. Why don’t we put out a summertime mixtape?” I said, “Cool. Let’s grab some summertime songs!” We wanted to make it about the summer vibes and being outside. We didn’t want to put any new music on it. We just wanted to create a vibe, so we did it. It was so well received, that it wasn’t until April of the next year that we started getting tweets about summertime 2 that the idea of a second volume was even considered. To look up and realize that we have done 10 summers with these mixtapes and it had become such a staple with so many people has been amazing. Ten is a really good number to end on. You don’t want to end on 11 or 14, so I was like we need gotta do 10, or we need to keep going. In my brain I was like 10 is good, we should stop here. Mick started calling me and was like, “listen, I know were going to stop at 10, but I think in light of where we are in the world and everything that is going on I think people need this more than ever”. I couldn’t debate that at all. SO instead of saying this was summertime 11, it’s summertime 2020. Summer Water was the perfect sponsor for this because you have a drink called Summer Water and our mixtape is called Summertime, so it all just kind of flowed in. Sometimes things just kind of click together that you don’t expect to click together like that, and this is probably the most perfect match of any mixtape we’ve done. AllHipHop: Being the 11th Volume of the Summertime mixtape series, what keeps you and MICK coming back for more? Jazzy Jeff: When we did the first one, it was just cool to put it out there. People in the States loved it, played it at the barbecues, and if I’m not mistaken XM Satellite debuted it and played. It was just a really good summer vibe. I didn’t expect that as we went into December and January, that the people in the southern hemisphere were going to start rocking it because it was going into their summer. So that was crazy int hat it was basically covering two different zones in opposite seasons. We wouldn’t have continued if people weren’t asking for it. From the second one on, Michael Rappaport has been a guy that would tweet, “where’s the summertime mixtape”. It has gotten to the point that it’s not officially summer until we drop a mixtape. There were a couple times we dropped it the first day of summer, or on the Fourth of July, but when we missed the first day of summer people were like, ‘you better drop this on the 4 of July!’ You can’t complain about that because if people didn’t enjoy it, they wouldn’t ask for it. AllHipHop: How did you and MICK initially meet and conceive what has now become this worldwide phenomenon that is the Summertime Mixtape series? Jazzy Jeff: It’s funny, and weird at the same time, that Mick was a really big DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince fan. I met him through his mixtapes from way back in the day and I became a fan of his. I was able to do a couple of shows with him and we exchanged numbers, and we began to talk to the point that when Will would have birthday parties and […]