Will.i.am

by Danny White

  He received $10,000 for his agreement on the deal, but the prestige and boost it gave him were immeasurable. He even began ghostwriting lyrics for Eazy-E. ‘I knew how to write those kind of rhymes, I just didn’t want to rap,’ he said. ‘Eazy-E was one of those cats that wanted to have dope MCs around him to write his shit, or to just be there. He just wanted to be surrounded by dope shit. Now, I’m not saying that I was one of his dope-shit selections, but he wasn’t closed-minded, that guy.’

  The credibility that this deal lent Will can’t be overestimated. As a schoolboy he had been noted by one of the leading rap artists of the moment. ‘I was in high school, so it was a dream come true,’ he said in an interview with Hip-Hop DX. ‘To be in the eleventh grade, twelfth grade, and you’re running with Eazy. N.W.A. was, still … think about what they were in ’92, ’93. That was unbelievable. That’s like being in high school right now, and you’re working with … you can’t compare it. You can’t compare it to 50 Cent or Jay-Z, because Eazy-E was the first nigga.’

  He later recalled how he showed off about his success. ‘I come to school with a record deal, like, “Yo, I got a record deal, ten G’s”,’ he added. ‘To a seventeen-year-old, ten thousand dollars – granted, it was, like, for life, Eazy-E had me signed like for ever.’

  Will wanted to confirm the faith that was increasingly being placed in him and so he began to take part in ‘rapping battles’ at a nightclub called Ballistyx. It was there that he and apl first met their future bandmate, Taboo, putting the seal on the initial line-up of what would become the Black Eyed Peas.

  It was a friend of Will’s, known as Mooky, who suggested that he meet up with Taboo. Will remembered seeing Taboo – whose real name is Jaime Luis Gómez – as he was dancing or, in their words, ‘doing something special’. Wearing ‘thrift’ clothes, complete with a beret, Taboo made for quite a sight. ‘He’s kind of scary looking, but his dancing is dope,’ apl told Will. Soon, both men began to wonder: ‘Who’s the dancer?’

  As for Taboo, he remembered seeing a sixteen-year-old ‘eccentric-looking black dude’, who was ‘rapping like a madman’. As Will rapped he played with his dreadlocks. His ‘wide-eyed intensity’ made Taboo wonder if this eccentric was ‘in some kind of trance’. Will was rapping faster than Taboo had ever heard anyone rap before. It was a ‘whirlwind’, remembered Will’s future bandmate in his autobiography. Even then, Will’s charisma and stage-presence were powerful. He ‘owned the floor’ and had more energy than the rest of the club combined. ‘He was as colourful as his socks were loud, and as brilliant as anything I’d seen on the street, in videos, or in battles.’

  From the moment the three band members first got together as a unit, recalls Taboo, it was clear they shared a ‘unity in spirit, intention and meaning’. He recalls liking Will, who he viewed as ‘a perfectionist, all about the pristine clothes, the focus to be number one, and keen on detail’. However, that perfectionism could flare-up into confrontation with anyone he felt might be poised to upstage him. During an open-mic battle with a twelve-year-old called Little E, Will at first let the youngster have his moment on the stage. Then, Will’s competitive spirit kicked in and he fiercely contested. ‘Will turned it on and smoked him,’ recalled Taboo. Will’s performance made him the clear winner of the battle. Afterwards, the boy’s uncle confronted the triumphant winner, accusing him of ‘disrespecting my little nephew’. Voices were raised and the men began to shove each other. Will’s friend Mooky had to step in to prevent violence breaking out.

  Will was proving to be an unstoppable force in these MC battles. As the Hollywood MC champion he managed a winning streak of weekly victories that ran for an astonishing eighteen months. He seemed almost invincible – and certainly felt it at times. He even saw off a highly rated MC from Chicago, called Twista, an artist who had appeared in The Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest rapper in the world. As Taboo put it, ‘hip hop greats were bowing down’ to Will.

  There was no doubting the ferocity of Will’s ambitions. Taboo recalls how Will used to talk about his ‘big dream’ and how he was going to make it work. He was a good talker even then: Taboo describes how Will was a natural-born storyteller, who was ‘fast, clever and animated’. Although he could be shy and ‘guarded’ when he first met people as a teenager, Will would soon open up once he knew someone – and as he opened up, he revealed huge reserves of determination, vision and ability. Few who met him left after an encounter with Will unaware that he intended to go places in life and that he had the ability to do so. His energy was such that he did not only impress people with his own ambition: he also recharged their own aspirations and positivity. He quite naturally had the sort of charisma and presence that politicians sometimes spend enormous sums to try to develop.

  According to Taboo, Will was also an expert roller of joints. In his book, Taboo remembers Will handing him ‘the most expertly, perfectly rolled joint’ he had ever seen – he described it as such a finely formed cigarette that it was as if Will had ‘micromanaged’ its construction. What also impressed Taboo was that the joint had been rolled so quickly – but then Will has long lived his life as if he is late for an important meeting with lots of other ambitious eccentrics. Not that Will was a pot-smoker himself. According to his bandmate, having had a bad experience with the drug, Will had decided never to try it again – and it seems clear that he has abstained from drug-taking. Perhaps he felt that cannabis, which has a reputation as a drug that saps its users of energy, focus, belief and ambition, was the last thing he needed, as he was positively overflowing with all those virtues. As Taboo said, Will emitted an ‘invincible aura that screamed: “I’m going to be somebody”.’ Even the way Will dressed, Taboo said, absolutely shone with ‘fire and hunger’. Extensive cannabis use would surely dampen that ardour.

  *

  When he was twenty, Will fell in love for the first time. It was an association that developed into an eight-year-long relationship, and not one that was entirely enjoyable. During the relationship, when ‘things got hard’, the couple even went to a relationship counsellor, who encouraged them to do activities together. One of these was to cook food together – ‘that’s why I know how to cook now’, said Will, looking back. ‘It wasn’t abusive, it was just destructive emotionally.’ He has been coy about the identity of the woman, only saying: ‘she still lives in the ghetto we came from, in Compton, LA’, and that: ‘she doesn’t care about entertainment, or fashion, she’s just a real person’.

  As a result, the more famous Will became while they were together, the more uninterested she became in the world of celebrity. While Will appreciated her lack of interest in fame, the two were pulling in different directions. Their split was inevitable but, even after it, Will felt that what they had would, in a sense, last for ever. ‘I will always love my ex-girlfriend,’ he later told the Guardian. ‘She’ll get married, but that love we had, regardless of exclusivity, is beyond that. Love lasts for ever.’ He would even go on to offer her a slice of the profits from one of the songs she inspired.

  Some of Will’s views on sex and sexuality have been highly controversial. He has, more recently, made some rather prim and prudish statements about it, and it is worth briefly stepping forward in the story to connect them. He was asked what would guarantee to put him off a woman. ‘If she had condoms in her house, that would just fuckin’ throw me off,’ he said. ‘That’s just tacky.’ Some women found this statement highly offensive. At the time, his female interviewer took him up on his outburst, asking him why he was so offended by the thought of a woman taking precautions. ‘I just think, like, if you’re into someone and you guys get to that level, then that’s something you should converse about together and say, “Hey, maybe we should get some”,’ he said.

  Outraged women asked who he thought he was to suggest there was something wrong with them having contraceptives. Others felt his views were arcane or misogynistic. However they really seem to hint at the contradictions that make
Will such an intriguing character. As far as some of his fans are concerned, his contradictions and complexities survive to this day – they are what make Will such a vulnerable, and therefore attractive, character.

  Even before he was famous, Will was building a reputation for himself not only as a promising musician and performer, but also as an attractive character of dazzling influence. Together, these gifts would take him far. It was his mother who continued to influence him as he formed his musical energies into a three-piece unit, into a successful band, then fashioned that into a world-conquering supergroup. ‘My mom keeps me down to earth,’ he said. ‘I’d hate for my mom to see me act like a dick, so I try not to act like a dick.’ Not that he would use such language in front of Debra. As he told The New York Times: ‘When I get around my mom, all my cuss words are deleted from my vocabulary. Automatically, they just leave.’

  It was Debra’s example that lit the spark to the forcefield of motivational charisma that has come to serve Will so well. She was the first to lift him from the surroundings he was born into. First, she did so emotionally, by encouraging him to stay positive and not fall into the many traps that surrounded them. Then she did so by arranging for him to be schooled in a better area. Will has honoured her in many ways, not least the fact that rather than writing songs that glorified the squalor and danger that surrounded him, he instead wrote positive songs that encouraged everyone, whatever their background, to believe in themselves, to better themselves and to enjoy the ride. In so doing, he not only honoured Debra, he also put a smile on faces around the world.

  2 Building a Band

  One day, a momentous meeting took place when Will and Taboo met in the studio car park. As well as being significant in the history of the band that became the Black Eyed Peas, this meeting is also pertinent to understanding Will’s own powerfully alluring charm. Prior to the formation of the Black Eyed Peas, Taboo had been in a band called Pablo, and he had found himself growing increasingly disgruntled in the studio.

  Taboo’s memories of what happened next do much to shed light on the power of Will’s positive charisma. He recalled that when Will fixed you in eye-to-eye contact, the energy he could communicate was immense. Taboo said that even when Will was a teenager, his eyes could ‘hook you and plug you’ into his own vast reserves of self-belief. His charisma was also matched by his compassion: Will has long been spoken of as a man with much empathy. These are the sorts of skills that jettisoned US president Bill Clinton to the White House. One wonders whether the opinionated Will might consider a crack at mainstream politics himself one day. He has stated that he will never do so, explaining: ‘I’ll never enter politics myself, though. I’ve got too many skeletons in my closet.’ However, many a political career has been launched after fierce denials that the politician in question ever wanted to enter the profession. It is as if reluctance is the final stage prior to acceptance. Furthermore, in his role as the unofficial but undoubted ambassador of the band, he has shown the stature and charisma to have a good chance. America has always been open to the idea of celebrities moving into the political sphere, after all.

  At this stage, three future members of the Black Eyed Peas had met each other. Will found that he had significant things in common with apl and Taboo. All three had grown up in poor families who lived in tough neighbourhoods and without the presence of a father. All three had faced difficulties, obstacles and emotional pain as a result of these disadvantages. All three had also found that in music there was a sense of salvation – and as a potential way to better themselves financially, it was a big draw. With their already heightened sense of being outsiders, they wanted to make music for other outsiders. They also felt that the right way to do this was to create positive music that lifted its listener. If only, they rightly reasoned, Will’s personality and presence could be injected into the music, they would have something almost magical on their hands. The positivity was – and is – key to the Black Eyed Peas project. Will was the pivot of that positivity. He was to be at the centre of everything.

  For instance, it was Will who pushed for their act to include a live band. Here again, his approach was original. He knew that the presence of a live band would take his act outside of the rap mainstream. ‘I got tired of DATs and records,’ he explained later. ‘I wanted to allow for a certain level of human mistakes in the music. I like the idea of having a different vibe every night, you know, as to what the bass player might be feeling that night, or whatever. We just wanted live shit.’

  His bandmates quickly agreed with his proposal. As Taboo commented, without a band they would resemble a ‘car without wheels’. He felt this would give them the edge. So he personally assembled the musicians himself. They then set to work rehearsing in apl’s garage, under Will’s quasi-managerial eye. Apl loved the new intensity and freedom that the backing band gave them. ‘It makes you want to be electric’, he reflected. ‘It gives you the freedom to move’.

  By the rest of the band’s admission, Will was the most focused of the line-up, with apl also particularly on the ball. As for Taboo, he described himself at that stage as a ‘functioning reefer head’. It all began to make for an improbably effective ensemble.

  Even through the haze of his admitted extensive cannabis use, Taboo was sharp enough to see Will’s many good points. He learned a great deal from Will in the early months and years of their friendship. For instance, during the aforementioned fateful car-park encounter, when Taboo confided in Will that he was lacking confidence as a rapper. He told Will, in fact, that he felt he was ‘wack at rapping’. First, Will gave Taboo a general confidence boost, stating life was not necessarily about being the best, but that the overall performance was important. Then, he offered Taboo a novel method to improve his rap technique, which involved placing a pencil in his mouth, between his teeth and behind his tongue. By rubbing his tongue against the pencil, Will created a rhythmic sound effect. He then removed the pencil from his mouth and told Taboo that he too should perform that exercise each day.

  At first, Taboo, understandably, felt this was a ‘shit-crazy thing to do’, but such was Will’s poise and confidence that Taboo was willing to try anything he suggested. ‘I listened and obeyed,’ said Taboo. For weeks, he would perform the pencil routine in front of the bathroom mirror each morning. Even as he did so, he would ask himself what on earth he was doing such an exercise for. Yet he persevered and he found that the speed and smoothness of his rap delivery improved very quickly. The confidence that this gave him was huge – he said his self-doubts were ‘erased’ by the transformation that Will’s pep talk and pencil trick had prompted. This is an early, striking, example of Will’s mentoring and coaching abilities. Some musicians who have gone on to become managers or talent-show judges have done so more on the strength of their celebrity, rather than their inherent suitability for a mentoring role. Will, however, has had a mentor nature for many years.

  The first official recording from Atban Klann was a track entitled ‘Merry Muthafuckin’ Xmas’. It was released on the Eazy-E EP, 5150: Home 4 Tha Sick, which hit the shelves on 10 December 1992. Clocking in at just under six minutes, it made for a bombastic, comedic and bawdy closer to the five-track EP. Alongside Will’s band on the disc were Rudy Ray Moore, Menajahtwa and Buckwheat. The disc sold well, becoming certified gold within three months. ‘So that’s the first time I had a song come out,’ said Will. ‘That shit was dope.’

  Next, the trio began working on an album. It was to be entitled Grass Roots. However, the album was never released in its official form – the band shelved it after tragedy struck. When Eazy-E was admitted to the Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, it was first assumed that he was suffering from asthma. Instead, he was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS. Having been sexually promiscuous from his early teens and having been involved in the drug world, Eazy-E had lived a life that flirted with danger.

  Over the next month, he attempted to make amends with as many people as possible, but he died
on 26 March 1995. Although his death was not entirely unexpected, it was a sad day for Will. Hip-hop had lost one of its most extraordinary practitioners of all time, and Will had lost the man who had given him his first leg-up into the music world.

  *

  Meanwhile, Will’s band simply continued to evolve. Taboo’s renewed confidence and ability only hastened the day when Will would invite him to join his own band. Soon, that band would be renamed from Atban Klann, to the Black Eyed Peas. It seems a wise name-change, even putting aside the benefit of hindsight. Where Atban Klann – the first word of which stands for A Tribute Beyond A Nation – is awkward to pronounce and easily forgotten, Black Eyed Peas rolls off the tongue and stays in the memory. Black Eyed Peas had been the name of Will’s production company, and he simply decided to transfer it to the band. As to its origins, it had been struck upon one day when, at a brainstorming session, Will and his bandmates had been shouting out names of items that include colours. They quickly centred on ‘Black Eyed Peas’, the name of the bean that is popular in both the West Indies and America’s south. The bean is white, with a black dot – or eye. A popular soul food, according to tradition if it is eaten at New Year one experiences a prosperous year ahead. For the band, this seemed to be a moniker that was appropriate on many levels.