Will.i.am

by Danny White

  With the success came an increase in their workload. They learned how it felt to be dragged out of bed before dawn, to spend the day in hectic promotional activities that only ended after midnight. Mainstream breakfast-television show commitments sat uneasily with nightclub appearances, but all the different demands had to be met. As they worked harder, their management attempted to keep their energy levels up by bringing them more and more good news. Nothing could stop personalities and tempers from fraying on occasion.

  As well as fraught tempers, there were other consequences – and Will was the first to discover them. At the ceremony to celebrate twenty years of MTV at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, he noted the toll that all this was having on Taboo. The evening is now most notorious for the kiss that was shared onstage between Britney Spears and Madonna. However, within Will’s circles, there was a more immediate issue. Taboo, by his own later admission, drank three bottles of wine in just sixty minutes at the ceremony. He began to draw attention to himself with noisy, drunken behaviour. With the band due to perform at an after-show party, Will quickly decided that they would have to do so without Taboo. ‘Just get him out of here before it gets any worse,’ he ordered. Will had warned his errant bandmate about his hedonistic ways before. He followed up with a more direct comment, telling Taboo he had to ‘slow it down’. It would be a while before Taboo heeded those words.

  However, the ruthless promotional treadmill continued to move along. For nine intense months, Will and his band travelled around the world promoting, performing and partying. Taboo estimates that they gave 465 performances in a single year. The title and theme of their next album would be influenced by these heady days. All the hard work was paying off: Elephunk was becoming a hit around the world, propelling the band to new heights. It reached number three in the UK, number fourteen in America and charted respectably in many other territories. This was significant, as Will had told the band just before they started work on the album, that this was the big one, the make or break moment in their career. ‘We haven’t proved anything yet,’ he had told them. With Elephunk’s sales, they had now.

  The critical response to the album, though, was not quite so satisfying. America’s influential Village Voice was characteristically grudging in its praise, describing the album as one ‘in which the unbelievably dull El Lay alt-rappers fabricate the brightest actual pop album of 2003’. However, it was the paper’s rating of ‘A minus’ that counted.

  Rolling Stone said that ‘cliched observations, preachy lyrics and MTV-ready posturing float atop meticulously detailed production’. Entertainment Weekly was sniffy, too. Its reviewer said that the album ‘courts the mainstream with an almost comic ferocity, jumping on every bandwagon that’s passed’. Thank goodness, then, for the Popmatters website, which crowned an admiring review with this thundering praise: ‘If Elephunk doesn’t move you, if you don’t end up with a massive grin slapped across your face, if you don’t heed the built-in dance demands, then check your pockets; there should be a receipt for your soul in there somewhere.’ Drowned in Sound also beat the drum for the record, saying: ‘Look on the surface, and you’ve got an album full of memorable songs, hooks that lodge in your mind ... but look in depth, and it’s quality from the top down.’

  In a sense, the sometimes harsh time that the band were experiencing at the pens of the critics was a result of their more admirable traits. The positivity of their message was one that sat ill at ease with the critics, who tend to be a breed more interested in ‘cool’ than happiness. Although Will’s band have little in common with British stadium act Coldplay, both acts found that their attitude chimed enormously with mass, mainstream audiences precisely for the reason it did not with reviewers. For instance, take Blender magazine’s review, which concluded of the band’s happy attitude: ‘Problem is, that kind of constant high gets as dull as life on Prozac.’

  For Will, the prospect of reining in their upbeat message in order to please a handful of journalists was never on the cards. In time, more and more journalists would come to appreciate his ways, particularly those on more considered titles. For instance, when they performed at the Grammys, the Washington Post said theirs was ‘the most impassioned performance of the night’. Their appeal to the mainstream was reaffirmed when the NBA chose the Elephunk track ‘Let’s Get Retarded’ as the anthem for the play-off matches. The lyrics and title of the song were edited to ‘Let’s Get It Started’. They also gave the song to the Democrat party to use for the election campaign of White House hopeful John Kerry. Will hoped the song would help send Kerry to victory over the much-maligned George W. Bush. It did not do so, but Will enjoyed his brush with politics. Next time he got involved with a presidential campaign it would be in a much higher-profile sense. An ultimately triumphant one, too.

  Mulling over the critical response to their latest release, Will, in part, did understand the perspectives of the critics. ‘If I was a journalist and I knew The Black Eyed Peas when they first came out and where they are now, I would write some of the same things too,’ he told The Times. ‘The way things were marketed didn’t honour how it was built. But we weren’t trying to make hits when we made Elephunk. You think I would have called the CIA terrorists [as he did in ‘Where is the Love?’] right around the time America went to Iraq if I was trying to make a record to get played on the radio?’

  Meanwhile, he wondered whether the post-September 11 era might herald changes in the hip-hop industry. ‘Everything affects hip-hop,’ he told The Onion. ‘The question is, how does it affect the money that corporations are going to invest to put out different kinds of hip-hop? Hip-hop may offer negative feedback on the world’s problems, but that’s just the hip-hop that’s being promoted now. There are hip-hop groups in different sectors and different communities that are doing positive shit, but corporations and companies don’t want to spend the money on them that it would take to get them out there.’

  Will hoped that the ‘positive shit’ might get more airtime and investment. Not that his focus on positivity and unity was blinkered. He realized that his vision was as vulnerable to cash-in and distortion as any. ‘The only thing that I’m afraid of is that if we get too big, the labels are going to be like, “Get a fucking Indian guy, and a black guy, and a fucking Pakistani, and make them dance!” That’s the only thing that I’m afraid of.’

  A renewed wave of accusations that the band had sold out rolled in. ‘All that “sell-out” stuff comes from the same people who held us close to their hearts for our first two records,’ Will responded in an interview with Faze magazine. ‘And they call it “sell-out” for what reason? Because we have a white girl in our group now? I don’t think that just because one day you do a jazzy record and then you do a funk record means you sold out. It just means you like music and you’re trying to dabble in every ray of colour in the music world.’

  In 2002, the sell-out allegations had reached their peak when the band featured on an advertisement for the soft drink giant, Dr Pepper. For Will, their involvement in the project was a true ‘eureka’ moment. It was also something that he easily resolved in his own mind. ‘I realized I made more money doing a thirty-second piece of music than two hours worth of music,’ he said. He also insisted that the band retained control over all the creative aspects of the project. To him, this meant there was nothing wrong with their getting involved, whatever the snipers might say. ‘If you are in control of the video, which we were, if you are in control of the clothes, the song, which we were … what’s not to like? And the people are getting the music for free anyway … so who cares?’ Will believes that even performing something as ostensibly authentic as a live concert puts his band at the epicentre of a storm of commercial activity – including the sponsorship of the venue, the petrol bought as a result of the thousands of fans driving to the concert and so on.

  *

  The second single from the album was called ‘Shut Up’, a catchy song about the break-up of a relationship, and the song
that had brought Fergie to the party. It reached number one in fifteen countries. In 2010, funk star George Clinton took legal action against the band, claiming they had used a sample from his 1970s song ‘(Not Just) Knee Deep’ without his permission. It was a testing moment for Will when news of the suit first reached him. (The case would be settled in 2012. Although the terms were not disclosed, in a court filing, mediator Gail Killefer said the settlement ‘fully’ resolved the dispute.)

  So hectic had been the response to Elephunk, that for the band members it sometimes felt as if they had gone from relative obscurity to international acclaim overnight.

  Will, meanwhile, had been hard at work on his second solo album. Entitled Must B 21, it is a seventeen-track release that was described by RapReviews.com as ‘an exercise in hip-hop in its purest most unadulterated form, packed into a highly concentrated dose’. The same reviewer urged people to buy the album not just to enjoy its music, but also to support Will’s solo career and the fortunes of the label, Barely Breaking Even, through which he was releasing the material. Lest the critic appear to be asking people to buy it on only a charitable basis, he concluded: ‘It deserves to go gold, because it’s that damn good.’

  Will hired an impressive selection of fellow artists to appear on the album, including KRS-One, MC Lyte, Planet Asia and Phife from A Tribe Called Quest. Their contributions took the album to a higher plane than Will’s debut solo effort. His track ‘Go!’ was featured on the Xbox computer game soundtrack for NBA Live 2005.

  Will was about to take a break from the solo wing of his output: Must B 21 ensured he did so from a position of some strength. When he returned, it would be in a more fully solo sense, with the mass of collaborating guests consigned to the past.

  First, though, he had to hold on tight as his already soaring band rocketed ever higher. The Black Eyed Peas were proving to be an unstoppable force. No wonder a growing number of other famous artists were so keen to join the fun.

  4 Collaboration

  When Will attended the 2005 MOBO Awards in London, the highlight of the evening should have been the sight of hip-hop royalty Public Enemy landing the ‘Outstanding Contribution to Black Music’ gong. The genre-defining rap icons are a band that Will has often admired, but while he was delighted to see them recognized in this way, he was not about to switch his opportunistic senses off for the evening. His mind ticking away as quickly as ever, Will glanced around the venue to see which other musical figures were ‘in the house’ for the ceremony. Suddenly, he noticed that one of his all-time heroes was present. ‘Shit,’ Will exclaimed to his bandmates, ‘it’s James Brown!’

  In an era in which the stature of ‘legend’ is awarded far too easily, Brown remains richly deserving of it. His influence on the musical scene, particularly black music, is immense. His charisma is also huge and his entourage on the night was far from insubstantial. Therefore, most people were far too nervous and in awe to even consider approaching Brown for a chat.

  Will, though, is not like most people. He took a deep breath, marched over to Brown’s table and introduced himself to the man he admires so much. He told the godfather of soul just how much he admires his music. Then he took the conversation to another level. ‘One day,’ Will told Brown, ‘we would love to work with you’. It was an enormously audacious pitch. A successful one, too. ‘All rigggght,’ Brown told Will. ‘We’ll make it happen.’

  He was good to his word, too. Just seventy-two hours later, Brown joined The Black Eyed Peas in their studio in Chiswick, west London. The band were only given an hour’s notice of the arrival of Brown and his ten-strong entourage. Brown appeared, wearing a violet suit – described as ‘sharp-ass’ by Taboo – with a maroon shirt. With seven fellow musicians and three assistants in tow, he was every inch the superstar: in Taboo’s telling, Brown was ‘glowing’ and ‘oozing charisma’. He made the band feel like children in comparison. Brown’s first words were to remind The Black Eyed Peas that he did not normally take part in collaborations. Why? ‘I’m James Brown’. However, he said that ‘something told me I needed to work with The Black Eyed Peas, and that’s why I’m here. So let’s work!’

  Meanwhile, one of Brown’s assistants gave the band a sharp reminder of Brown’s stature, after Will had made a faux pas. ‘Yo, what up, James, how you doing?’ Will had asked as Brown arrived. Brown’s assistant told Will in no uncertain terms that under the expected ‘system’ of behaviour, everyone was expected to refer to Brown only as ‘Mr Brown’. He added that the surname form should be used universally during the session, so Will should only be referred to by other people as ‘Mr I Am’, while Fergie would become, for the duration of the session, ‘Miss Ferg’. With that typically show-business system made clear, the artists went to work.

  Will had created the foundations of the song he wanted Brown to work on with them. It was called ‘They Don’t Want Music’, and he was nervous as he played the track as it stood to Brown, anxious for his approval. However, Brown did approve of the song and immediately took charge of the process. He told the assembled musicians of both camps that he would tell them what to do and it would be he, and only he, who would ‘give you direction’.

  The following hours proved an astonishing experience for Will, as he sat next to Brown at the mixing desk and watched his hero bark out orders. Will found it all both dizzyingly fun in its own right and enormously instructive. Brown told the musicians how to ‘feel the funk’ and make their performance perfect. Often, his orders to his own band of instrumentalists and vocalists were delivered via nothing more than a particular grunt sound, which Brown would emit and which they seemed to understand. Will watched it all with wonder.

  When the ensemble moved upstairs for lunch, Will got to see Brown’s diva behaviour in its full horrendous glory. Flunkies brushed his hair for him and even cut his food for him. All in all, Brown’s visit to their studio had been one of the most astonishing experiences of Will’s life in itself – and from it came a track for their new album.

  Another special guest on the album was Sting, the former lead singer of the Police. The collaboration came about due to a separate project Will had been working on with Sting. With the band already considering sampling the melody from Sting’s iconic ‘An Englishman in New York’ on one of the tracks for the album, it was eventually decided that they would invite him to sing on the track, which was called ‘Union’. While James Brown had blown the band away with his charisma and star-like behaviour, Sting impressed them with the scale of his home, to which he invited Will and the band to stay while they were in the south-west of England to perform at the Glastonbury Festival.

  Lake House, in Wiltshire, is indeed a breathtaking house and Will was mesmerized the moment he arrived at the 800-acre property in Salisbury. The opulent, castle-like main building houses some fourteen bedrooms and eight bathrooms. In the grounds stands a 350-year-old tree – the presence of which was said to have convinced Sting and his wife Trudie to buy the place. Will connected well with Sting and Trudie. Together they engaged in lengthy and deep conversations about spiritual matters. Sting also took the ensemble on a trip to the nearby attraction of Stonehenge.

  *

  The majority of the work on the new album, which was to be called Monkey Business, took place in London. The band had rented three properties in Chiswick, the one Will stayed in was a tall, narrow house in the corner of a cul-de-sac. He and the band loved the greenery of the neighbourhood and were amused by the ubiquity of pregnant women and mothers of newborn babies. It seemed to be an area of many different types of creativity – fertile ground indeed.

  The band was focused and productive. As Fergie put it, they were creating a ‘waterfall’ that became ‘this huge ocean that is Monkey Business’. During the three months they worked on the album in London, that waterfall flowed well. Inspiration seemed to be everywhere: following a visit to a bhangra club in London, they recorded the Bollywood-flavoured song ‘Don’t Phunk With My Heart’. They also recorded
in France, Brazil and Japan.

  Will found he was inspired in the strangest of settings. One day they were travelling in Japan on the ‘bullet’ train, which can travel up to 180 miles per hour. He was listening to a CD of surfing rock-style tunes when one of them, a track called ‘Miserlou’, inspired him to create a new song. He fired-up his laptop and began to work on the new song, using recording software he had installed for moments such as these. As the rest of the band sat drinking sake, Will was hard at work, his creative juices flowing at top speed as the train raced through Japan. Later, on a flight, he sat and worked further on the song. When the flight arrived in Tokyo, Will took his computer to the park and recorded the vocals. This was the sort of crazy way in which the album came together.

  The title of the album had a degree of playful protest to it. Over the course of several years, the band had felt that the orders that their management and record label constantly bestowed upon them had almost relegated the band to the role of performing monkeys. In a harsh assessment of the band’s place in the chain, Will would say, ‘Sing, monkey, dance, monkey, get on stage, monkey!’ But there was a secondary dimension to the simian stature they felt they had developed. As the band had been driven away from a venue one evening, so many fans had surrounded their vehicle that they felt that they were monkeys in a zoo, caged away from the visitors. Finally, the impish ways that the band adopted to get through the rigours of touring also felt, at times, like ‘monkey business’. Thus the title of the new album was representative of the band’s feelings at the time, capturing well the upsides and downsides of their growing fame. To a degree, it also signifies the long-term spirit of Will’s band, who always believed that playfulness was a crucial part of the experience both publicly and behind the scenes.