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
Hip-hop is limiting itself and that also goes for editorially. Magazines and websites are the gatekeepers of what people think hip-hop is, but they actually end up limiting what hip-hop can be.
When the music industry started collapsing, the logical people understood that the only place to go for shelter was the underground. If the world on the surface is burning up, and you know people that have bunkers, go to the bunkers.
Not many people give you a vision of what the future will bring.
We need creative people working with broadcasters, making smart content to inspire people to be geniuses.
If you have a vaccine or an antidote that people can benefit from, you're not going to want to keep it to yourself. You're going to want to spread that wisdom or whatever to as many people as you can, so everybody can benefit from it.
Most of these people who are celebrities now don't do anything to deserve it, so by that fact alone, I don't want to be one.
What Autotune allows is for people like myself and Kanye West not to depend on the singer. Back in the Fifties, the songwriter was rendered invisible. Now the songwriter is there in the forefront.
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 know people in gangs; I could have went down that route.
If I didn't mould my reality then I'd still be in the ghetto where people like me are supposed to stay. You have to dream your way out of the nightmare.
You can rule ignorance; you can manipulate the illiterate; you can do whatever you want when a people are uneducated, so that goes in line with corrupt business and corrupt politics.
When you follow your heart, you're never supposed to do things because of what you think people might say. You do it for the opposite reasons.
Pop is the most competitive form of music there is. You are always fighting to be adopted and accepted by the masses, and it's always shifting.
My mom's never been married. I've never even seen my mom kiss a dude.