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airdate December 18, 2008
Frontman and producer for the Grammy-winning Black Eyed Peas, will.i.am has also completed solo projects and collaborated on tracks with numerous other artists. YouTube visitors know the Emmy-winning musician-songwriter for videos—that quickly went viral—supporting Barack Obama's presidential bid. He works in film, portraying a mutant in the upcoming X-Men outing, and launched the Dipdive interactive Web site. He's also studied fashion and has his own clothing line. He's currently prepping his group for their spring '09 album.
Web Exclusive: will.i.am tells a story about Berry Gordy and his son. Gordy will be on Tavis Smiley on Jan 8 and 9. (3:57)
Full interview. (16:17)
will.i.am
Tavis: will.i.am is a beautifully talented hip-hop artist, producer, and songwriter whose group, the Black-Eyed Peas, will be out next spring with their much-anticipated new CD. In the meantime, he's out with a new video in honor of Barack Obama's ascendancy to the White House, "It's A New Day," now available on iTunes. Here now, a sample from "It's A New Day."
[Clip]
Tavis: Man, good to see you.
will.i.am: Oh, thank you.
Tavis: You been all right?
will.i.am: I've been good.
Tavis: I know you've been good; I can see that all over the Internet and everywhere else, I know you - and getting radio airplay too, now.
will.i.am: Yeah, just traveling, working hard, staying focused.
Tavis: Talk to me, Will, about the intersection - as I intimated at the top of the show, you represent this better than anybody - the intersection between politics and music, politics and culture. You are right at the epicenter of that intersection these days.
will.i.am: Well, I don't like to look at it as politics - I'm not a politician; the furthest thing from it. So I like to look at it as social activism and getting abreast to all the things that are going on in the world and lending yourself to inspire people to activate themselves and pay attention and use their power to push for change.
Tavis: How did Obama, though, become the conduit for you for the intersection to exist in the first place?
will.i.am: Well, four years ago, my crew, Black-Eyed Peas, we supported Kerry really hard. We got a call from Terry McAuliffe, who at the time was the head of the DNC, and we went out and campaigned for Kerry, and we were motivated and activated because we were just tired of Bush and our fears of where he would take us if he were in office another four years. So that got us up and moving.
And unfortunately Kerry didn't win and the things that we feared, happened. And as much as we were let down by making the effort to go out and do it, and we were smushed, that didn't stop us this time. At one point in time, I was on the fence if I was going to support Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, but the thing that swayed me to support Obama was his speech in New Hampshire, when he lost to Hillary.
That "Yes, We Can" speech really made me look at my life. I'm born and raised in East Los Angeles, the only Black family in our neighborhood. Everyone else was Mexican. I had a great childhood, and my mom at one point in time saw the importance of sending me to school in Palisades. So it's just weird how life is - I went to Brentwood Science Magnet, (unintelligible) junior high school, and Palisades High School.
So at one point in time, somebody fought for inner city kids to have the same opportunity as kids in the suburbs, and when I saw that speech, I thought of all the blessings I had. How school was a differentiating factor for me and my neighbors in my neighborhood. Like, I should be in jail, right? Because the statistics prove that.
The path that my neighbors too, the only thing that got me off that path was the friends I had in school, and the schools I went to, the teachers that I was inspired by. And watching that speech made me think of all that stuff and I was inspired, and that's the dude I wanted to campaign for.
Tavis: What do you make of the fact that you have been able, though - and others have done the same thing, but not at the level and the way that you have done it, which is to take technology, to put these videos out, as you have, on the Internet, and to have the success you've had with iTunes. Talk to me about the technological advantage that you have taken - that you've made use of to get your message out there this time around.
will.i.am: The title, "It's A New Day," is not just the song. It truly, truly is a brand new day. It's a day that everyone is truly connected, intertwined with technology. I could watch the news and they could say something that's happening in China, and at this point in time I could fact check it and go on my cell phone - nah, that ain't real. (Laughter) We have those options now. You didn't have that eight years ago.
Eight years ago, when Bush won against Gore - I don't know how that happened - but eight years ago there wasn't a YouTube.
Tavis: You know how it happened.
will.i.am: I know how it happened. (Laughter) But eight years ago, we -
Tavis: He took it, that's how it happened.
will.i.am: - we were left to the news telling us that. We didn't have the tools, we didn't have Google, how Google is today, we didn't have YouTube. When people were protesting at his inauguration, they didn't show us that, and there was no way to see that. There was no cameras out there or anything, and uploading in that minute as they capture those moments.
So the way I was able to engage with Americans and the other people in the other countries was by making a piece of content that inspired people to pass it around like a baton. I call it "batonables." You make content that is -
Tavis: Batonables.
will.i.am: Batonable. It inspires people to run as fast as they can to give it to the person that - their loved ones, or somebody that they respect, right?
Tavis: I like that.
will.i.am: Eight years ago, you had to pay advertising dollars for that - like, millions of dollars. Now, it's like you just got to pay attention. You pay attention to the posts of what's happening in the world, you make content that relates to what's going on, and you don't have to pay for anything other than relying and believing that someone's going to pass that message on.
Tavis: Let me ask you, to your point - and I take the point you're making, Will. You're being a little bit modest, which I understand, given who you are and the way you are, because you're awfully talented. Anybody with an idea can't necessarily pull off what you have pulled off in the run of this campaign. You're awfully gifted, awfully talented, and I don't want to belittle that in any way.
That said, to your point now, do you think that this technology that you're speaking of allows other people to engage in the same way that you have this time around?
will.i.am: If they pay attention.
Tavis: Yeah, if they pay attention.
will.i.am: And if they do it for all the right reasons. Yes, you could put some content up that's silly or gross, humorous, but it's not going to have the same effect if you pay attention and gather information, respect people's differences and find the commonality in Americans or whatever it is that you are trying to accomplish, whether it's renewable energy, whether it's campaigning for Barack Obama to try to get him president of the United States of America.
Tavis: Speaking of respecting the differences, did you ever give thought at any point in the process to getting so out there, being so connected to one guy, when everybody in the country wasn't going to vote for that one guy? Clearly, Obama won, but there were, what, 43 percent of people, 46 percent, who didn't.
As an artist, did it ever occur to you, did you ever think about, were you ever hesitant about the fact that you know what? Not everybody who buys my music is an Obama supporter. Am I in any way putting myself out by doing this so aggressively?
will.i.am: Yeah, I thought about that, but when you weigh the options of what's important, doing what I did was more important. The record industry at this point in time is in turmoil, too, so I could think about are people going to buy my records. I'm happy if people just listen to the record, all right? I don't know why you're going to go buy it anyway - ain't no record stores. (Laughter)
But anyway, so it wasn't one of the things I was thinking about. It wasn't hard to make my decision. But fortunately, I'm blessed enough to have fans in other countries, and hear the - I was connected to the cry-out for the rest of the world praying that America graduated - graduated from its prejudice, graduated from its ill practices as far as racism, and just became the nation it promised to be.
If Barack Obama did not become the president, America, still to this day, out of all the years that it's been a superpower, would have been an idea. It would have been a concept that you could come from nothing and become something. Just being a guy from the ghetto and being a businessman, that's not the promise. The promise is really coming from nothing and becoming something - the highest position in the world: the president of the United States of America.
And now, America's not just a concept. It is an actual, functioning machine that means what it promises. And hooray, because it is a new day, with all the technology in the world for people to empower themselves, to connect. The concept of power to the people? That was in the '60s. Well, we got the power now. I have the same tools NBC got, of distribution. I don't got to wait. I don't have to wait for a marketing meeting to censor it. I just record it and send it. (Laughter) That is beautiful.
Tavis: Speaking of recording and sending, here's the exit question: When are you recording the new Black-Eyed Peas stuff, and when you going to send it?
will.i.am: We're recording the record now. See, I'm in a pickle, because we still have a record contract and we're still going to deliver our 12 songs, but I recorded 100 songs, and we're going to release the record first quarter next year, we're going to tour all around the world, the way that we do. We'll go to every country on the planet between 2009 and 2010. As they say in India, it's a wonderful time.
Tavis: What's the pickle you're in, though?
will.i.am: The pickle - recording and sending. I can't just send it when I want to.
Tavis: Oh, I got you. I thought the pickle was you got 100 songs and you got to pick 12.
will.i.am: No, no, no, that ain't the pickle, that's the dip. (Laughter)
Tavis: Give me some (unintelligible). I like that, man. And that's why he is will.i.am, and that's why we all love him, his creativity, his charm, his intellect, and his skill, his gift. Glad to have you here, man.
will.i.am: Thank you. You going to go to the inauguration?
Tavis: Yeah, I'll be there.
will.i.am: I'll see you there.
Tavis: I know you'll be there, I'll see you there. will.i.am, I love him.
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