Will Smith has one big introduction to make at Tuesday night's BET Awards: Gangster rappers, meet the rest of the world. Smith told The Associated Press he hopes to impress the global significance of U.S. black culture on the show's audience and artists.

"The kids that are making these trends, making these songs, don't understand the level of effect that black Americans have around the world," he said in an interview. " ... Black Americans are so elevated, it's almost worship."

Smith, co-host of the show (8 p.m. EDT) at Hollywood's Kodak Theater with wife Jada Pinkett-Smith, said he witnessed the phenomenon recently while in Africa. Touring a village in Mozambique, he came across a shack on which someone had scrawled the name of slain rapper Tupac Shakur.

"I was asking the kids: What is it about Tupac? Why is that there? I kept asking why. They were saying we want to dress like you dress, wear all the things you wear, talk how you talk." "The impression is that black Americans are the dragon slayers. Here we are 13 percent minority in a foreign land, and yet we can make laws, change laws. If Jesse Jackson shows up at Coca-Cola, something changes."

Smith, who won the first rap Grammy in 1988 for his squeaky-clean "Parents Just Don't Understand," said he wants hip-hop artists to recognize their importance and shift away from thuggish themes. "It's real important to have balance of the imagery. Yes, there are people who fire guns in the street, but there's also doctors who go to work in those areas to feed their children."

Now more well-known as a movie star ("Men in Black," "Bad Boys," "Independence Day") than rapper, the 36-year-old Smith maintains on his latest album "Lost And Found" that his nice guy image has worked against him. "Black radio, they won't play me though," he raps in one song. "Guess they think that Will ain't hard enough. Maybe I should just have a shootout ... just ignorant, attacking, acting rough. I mean then, will I be black enough?"

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