story Jesús Triviño Alarcón | Photography David Yellen
IF WILLIAM ADAMS aka will.i.am were at Dave Chappelle’s fictional Player Hater’s Ball he’d be the soiree’s main target. On any given day he dresses in tight pinstriped slacks, pink Louis Vuitton sneakers and a nylon green jacket. Silky Johnson would have a field day. Seriously, the Black Eyed Peas’ frontman is a hip-hop purist’s antichrist. And he seems to be OK with that. Somewhat. The East L.A. native began his career as part of Atban Klan, a group Eazy-E signed to his Ruthless label, where he ghostwrote for the N.W.A. founding member. After E’s death and an unfulfilled contract, will formed BEP—a multicultural set of b-boys/rappers. In their formative albums (Behind the Front and Bridging the Gap) BEP were widely viewed as a trio whose passion for hip-hop outweighed their lyrical talent. As the trio became a quartet with former child star, Fergie, in 2004 with Elephunk, they simultaneously became one of the world’s most identifiable pop groups and ostracized by most of the hip-hop community for allegedly “selling out.”
Despite the hate, some of the genre’s most respected MCs (Nas, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes) are aching for a will beat. In addition, he resurrected the career of Brazilian star, Sergio Mendes, who’s signed to his label, will.i.am music group. Bottom line, he’s an in-demand producer/songwriter who’s busier than DMX in an airport parking lot. An hour before he worked with Q-Tip at downtown Manhattan’s Chung King Studios the 31-year-old attempts to convince a reporter that he is hip-hop. That this is a business and you have to adjust yourself for a specific market—basically assimilate or die a penniless fool. To some degree it’s sad to see him constantly trying to prove himself. Then you realize that after selling nearly 17 million records worldwide he can pay for the hurt to go far, far away.
SCRATCH At what age did you start experimenting with music?
WILL.I.AM When I was 14, 15 years old my mom bought a radio with a dual cassette [player], a Panasonic or something. I would get a tape and would touch play here and touch record there and then I would press pause and rewind. So I would make loops out of my tape deck. Press play, rewind it, and I would take a two-second piece of the song and make a four-minute loop out of it. As far as making loops I started there. At 17 I started fucking around with a Roland S550, then it was the SP-1200, and then I got my MP and it’s been on. A friend of mine, DJ Motivate, is the one who taught me. The first song I ever sampled was Sergio Mendes’ “Slow Hot Wind.”
What do you use to make your beats?
I do everything on my Mac. I’ve been programming on Pro Tools. Ever since Elephunk I’ve been doing everything on my Mac. I go through my soundbase and dump things that I’ve recorded in the studio with a little drum pattern and figure out what’s the vibe I’m feelin’. I start from there then I bring in the hi-hats and the kick and then I’ll listen to it and fill it in. I research when I’m writing songs, so I need the Internet while I’m recording. I need to be able to Google shit...