will.i.am
will.i.am
William Adams, known professionally as will.i.am, is an American hip hop recording artist, entrepreneur, actor, musician, DJ, record producer and philanthropist. He is best known as a founding member of the hip hop and R&B band The Black Eyed Peas, with whom he has received seven Grammy Awards, eight American Music Awards, a Billboard Music Award, a Teen Choice Award, two MTV Video Music Awards and three World Music Awards...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPop Singer
Date of Birth15 March 1975
CityLos Angeles, CA
CountryUnited States of America
It's dangerous to be a child star, but it's dangerous to be a child in the ghetto, or to be a child at school being bullied.
You know, I do music. If you look under the hood of the industry I'm in, it's all based on technology. From radio to phonographs to CDs, it's all technology. Microphones, reel-to-reels, cameras, editing, chips, it's all technology.
We all rely on technology to communicate, to survive, to do our banking, to shop, to get informed, but none of us knows how to read and write the code.
I will not start an initiative until I've spent my own money. Because if I spend my own money, people who want to get on board afterwards know that I am serious about it.
I remember when I was 11, I told my mom, 'One day I'm going to buy you a house.' And she said, 'Boy, don't you be making promises you can't keep.' I was like: 'No, Ma, it's not a promise. I'm going to buy you a house one day.'
When you think about the guys who started Twitter, and the Google guys, and the Facebook guys and the Napster guys, and the Microsoft guys, and the Dell guys and the Instagram guys, it's all guys. The girls, they're being left behind.
I know people in gangs; I could have went down that route.
There are five issues that make a fist of a hand that can knock America out cold. They're lack of jobs, obesity, diabetes, homelessness, and lack of good education.
Hip-hop was fast, originally. It was always fast music.
If you live in a good neighborhood, you drive home and there's a bank. There's grocery stores and big houses - but no motels. What that tells you psychologically is you protect your money and buy good things for your family to eat in your nice big house.
Hip-hop culture is probably one of the most powerful things to come out of America in a long time - everything from the music to the art to the dance to the language.
Music is my therapy and my straitjacket. Music keeps me sane and keeps my mind on something. It's fragile up there.
If you know how to freestyle, you will never have writer's block.
If you would ask my mom what books I liked growing up, I liked Dr. Seuss.