You probably know will.i.am as a member of the Black Eyed Peas and a coach on ITV’s The Voice. But the 42-year-old from Eastside Los Angeles is billed on his personal website as a “multi-faceted entertainer and creative innovator”. Today, he tells me he’s “a bringer of things, pretty much”.
Whenever will.i.am wants to check a historical fact, he says “question” into his smartphone and asks something like: “When was Franklin D. Roosevelt President?” A robotic, Siri-like voice then offers an answer, but the tech seems a bit glitchy and sometimes he has to repeat the same question. I ask him if it’s a bespoke app his developers have made for him.
He replies cryptically: “Oh it’s not an app… it’s some other stuff. Can’t talk about it.”
What he does want to talk about today is Masters of the Sun – The Zombie Chronicles, an augmented reality (AR) comic book he and his fellow Black Eyed Peas (now a trio following Fergie’s departure) have made with Marvel.
The project has been a seven-year labour of love for the man born William James Adams Jr. He originally wrote it as a film screenplay, but when the Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx failed to bite, will.i.am went back to the drawing board and hired a crack squad of coders and developers to turn it into an innovative tech-comic book hybrid with a score by Hans Zimmer.
As we sit at a table in a smart London hotel, will.i.am seems restless, initially. Then his manager brings the comic book and will.i.am shows me how the AR technology works: when he scans a page with his smartphone, its 2D characters become walking, talking figures on screen, voiced by an all-star cast including Mary J Blige, Queen Latifah and Snoop Dogg. He’s keen to show me pages featuring Foxx, who eventually said yes, and the famed Marvel Comics creator Stan Lee.
I ask will.i.am whether he thinks the story feels even more timely following the Black Lives Matter movement. “Unfortunately it’s been a subject that’s been going on for many years,” he says, before explaining how he thinks technology has catalysed the US civil rights movement.
“We’re knit so tight together than an hour seems like forever, and it’s bringing up issues that are yet to be resolved”
“Think of the rise in television in the 1950s and how that brought up tensions again because we saw exactly what was going on in the South with Jim Crow,” he says. “And now here we are in 2018, and the world is knit together tighter than it ever was. When people went to work in the 1950s, they’d have eight hours without seeing their wife and kids. Now we can’t go an hour without checking in with somebody.
“We’re knit so tight together than an hour seems like forever, and it’s bringing up issues that are yet to be resolved. And those issues are the last crumbs of a wicked society where we judge folks on colour and gender. It’s the last growing pain, the lactic acid in the muscle. I believe if we work that muscle a little more, and stretch it, we’ll be a stronger society.”
For most of our time together, will.i.am looks me right in the eye and gives long, careful answers which often reveal how staggeringly well-connected he is. He says he rarely gets nervous, but felt intimidated when he met Masayoshi Son, a Japanese CEO worth an estimated $23bn.
“It took all my workings in the world of music: working with Michael Jackson, Prince, Quincy Jones. Having conversations and collaborations with my heroes gave me the confidence to request a meeting with that man,” he explains.
“Not even performing at the Grammys, the Super Bowl, the World Cup, the Queen’s Jubilee. Nothing has given me the intense cotton mouth and angst as speaking in front of Bill Gates”
“Not even performing at the Grammys, the Super Bowl, the World Cup, the Queen’s Jubilee, nothing has given me the intense cotton mouth and angst as speaking in front of Bill Gates on my work in inner cities, teaching kids about robotics and computer science. I didn’t wanna mess up because I was representing my kids.”
In 2009, he set up the i.am.angel foundation to help children from low-income families go to college and pursue opportunities in science and tech education. Its work focuses on Boyle Heights, the humble LA neighbourhood where he grew up. “When you’re doing that kind of work, you need all the support you can get. If I mess up on stage, that’s me, I’ll fix it later. If I mess up for my foundation, that’s affecting lives that I’ve signed up to bring opportunities to.”
Where does his drive come from? “My mom encouraging me early on. ‘Willie, show Nanny your grades, make Nanny proud.’ At the end of the day, it’s as innocent as that: that kind of encouragement at the centre of the family builds a person’s character. That’s what we try to do at my school: offer encouragement.”
His drive helped Black Eyed Peas become, for a time, the biggest band in the world. In 2010, they topped the US singles chart for 26 consecutive weeks with the electro-rap hits “Boom Boom Pow” and “I Gotta Feeling”. When I ask how they did it, will.i.am’s response shows off his impressive memory.
“By going everywhere,” he says, after a pause. “Spending time in Slovakia, going to Lithuania, going to the Czech Republic, doing all the freaking performances that they asked us to do in Germany. Going to Spain, spending time in the UK, going to Brazil – and not just to Rio. But Recife, Porto Alegre, Fortaleza, Florianopolis, Curitiba, Belém, Brasilia, São Paulo. Going every single place we could.”
“‘Boom Boom Pow’ is the song that everybody we’ve ever come across is going to move and groove to”
He’s not finished. “Going to Nicaragua, Chile, Peru, Costa Rica. Knowing the divide and how sensitive Nicaraguans and Costa Ricans are, because they share the same coast. Going to Hispaniola and seeing how that island is split between Haiti and Dominican Republic, and how you can connect hearts and minds with music.
“Going to Russia, travelling to Holland – and not just Amsterdam, but Rotterdam and Haarlem. Going to Japan and Thailand and Indonesia. And the Philippines and South Korea and China and Taiwan.
“After going to all those places, it’s like, ‘I Gotta Feeling’ is the song that sums it all up. ‘Boom Boom Pow’ is the song that everybody we’ve ever come across is going to move and groove to.”
“You get it?” I nod. “But if you didn’t see the world, then you’re aiming in the dark.”
He says the song he’s most proud of is still “Where is the Love?”, Black Eyed Peas’ socially conscious 2003 breakthrough single. “When songs like that come, it’s like they come from nowhere,” he says. Another didn’t come until 2007, when he wrote “Yes We Can” after being impressed by a speech Barack Obama gave while campaigning against Hillary Clinton.
“That song went on to tip the election to where Obama became the Democratic nominee because it galvanised the youth,” he says.
“I don’t like using the term ‘virus’, because anyone can catch a virus. I say ‘baton’, because a baton means effort. Our song was
baton-able and people shared it”
“I don’t like using the term ‘virus’, because anyone can catch a virus. I say ‘baton’, because a baton means effort: you have to run to the nearest person as fast as you can to pass it to them.
“That song was baton-able and people shared it, and it was the first time a political figure running for office had a piece of content that got seen 20 million times in a weekend, and he became the Democratic nominee after that.”
With that thought, he’s whisked out the room. Just imagine who will.i.am might be meeting with next.
‘Masters of the Sun – The Zombie Chronicles’ is published by Marvel