Will.i.am (19 page)

He had collaborated with Eva Simons on the track, and spoke with enormous passion about her talent. ‘There are a lot of girls that are pretty and that can sing a little bit,’ he
said. ‘And they are usually connected to some powerful dude that gets them a whole bunch of songs that some unknown people did in the bedroom.’ Somewhat uncomfortably, many might feel
this description would apply to Cheryl Cole. It is unlikely Will would agree with that, but there is no doubting how much Simons had energized him. ‘So whenever I switch gears musically or
change directions, it’s because of the adrenaline and the influence of being around the world and dealing with different people like Eva,’ he said.

He continued work on his next solo album,
#willpower
, which he hoped to fashion into a complex work, replete with a number of different styles. ‘There’s classical s**t, like
just me and a guitar and an orchestra or me with just an orchestra and a kid’s choir,’ he said. ‘There’s some ghetto,
ugly, dirty stuff. And then
there’s dance stuff, global world stuff and, like, avant garde, left-of-centre, for-art’s-sake music that has nothing to do with getting played on the radio. I’m just art-ing out.
It’s pretty diverse.’

Originally, the album’s title had been
Black Einstein
. Fergie had first announced the original name on Hollyscoop.com. ‘I believe Will is coming out with a solo album,
I’ve heard it, it’s called
Black Einstein
, and it’s amazing,’ she said. ‘I’ve been waiting for him to come out with this for so long, ’cause I
want it. He won’t give it to me. I want it for the gym. He’s so amazing. Such a genius lyricist and I’m really excited for his project.’

Work on the album took place predominantly in Los Angeles, London and Paris. Will was deliberately taking his time on it. ‘I didn’t want to force this album,’ he told
Boombox
. His fear that self-indulgence might lead to him losing his grasp on reality was clear. ‘A lot of times an artist can over-think things. You get to the point that you are so
wrapped up in your music that you feel like you can just put buffalo knuckle sound effects on a track. It’s like, “Yo, you seriously making buffalo knuckle noises on a beat and you
think that’s hot?”’ Instead, he hooked-up with some of the cream of the music scene: ‘I worked with LMFAO. I got songs with Chris Brown, Ne-Yo, Britney Spears and a few
other people,’ he said.

Whether on his solo material or on other artists’ own albums, Will is often to be found in the recording studio. In September 2012, he worked in the studio with former
Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger. She tweeted a photograph of them at work, with the message: ‘Me and @iamwill in the studio … making la la la la la’s in LA.’ Will loved
it. ‘I made this song with Nicole Scherzinger that you would never expect,’ he said. ‘This classic piece of music that I did with Nicole, it’s beautiful. That girl sings
like I’ve never heard anybody sing like that in pop culture.’

One day as they worked, an earthquake shook Los Angeles. Will quipped on Twitter: ‘There was a #Earthquake in l.a just 1min ago ... If it wasn’t ... it was the beat I’m making
in the studio for @NicoleScherzy... #califault. [sic].’

He has also recently worked with Rita Ora, who offered an interesting insight into his style of work after he produced her song ‘Fall in Love’. ‘will.i.am is incredible,’
she told
Digital Spy
. ‘He’s like a genius and he works so fast. I don’t know how his brain is so like ... He can do so many things at once and does it the best as well.
He doesn’t half-heartedly do anything. We did “Fall in Love” in a day and night and then we went out and had a drink.’

He has also worked with the young prince of pop himself, Justin Bieber. Will has described the Canadian sensation as his ‘little brother’. ‘I like him because he’s going
to be around for a long time,’ he told MTV News. ‘And he’s really talented … [He is] very talented, beyond what people probably think he’s
capable of. I’ve worked with him and [seen] how talented he is.’ There were certainly no ‘cool’ points to be had in making this sort of statement, but Will preferred to tell
it as he saw it. He continued: ‘In the industry, especially as it’s changing, you’re going to [need] some type of real talent. Maybe people can’t see [it], right now, but
ten, fifteen years from now, he’ll still be around.’

Speaking of longevity, another of the artists Will worked with on
#willpower
is one of the record industry’s longest-lasting icons: Mick Jagger. The Rolling Stones frontman
appears on one of the album’s singles, ‘T.H.E. (The Hardest Ever)’. Will was pleasantly surprised by the ease with which he secured Jagger’s involvement, particularly
following the rather starry, distant way the Stones had behaved when the Black Eyed Peas toured with them. Rather than having to embark on a lengthy, quid pro quo negotiation via gate-keepers, due
to a relationship he had built with Jagger since The Black Eyed Peas opened for the Rolling Stones in 2007, Will was simply able to call Jagger directly to ask him if he was interested in
guest-appearing on the song.

The two had struck up an immediate rapport backstage. ‘Mick and I got along really well,’ he told the
Mirror
. ‘He took my number and wherever he was in the world
he would text me to hang out. “Yo, Will, I’m in Brazil. Are you here?” or “I’m in LA, where are you at?” Eventually, we hung out in 2008 at
a technology conference in New York. You wouldn’t believe we have similar friends that are tech enthusiasts. We have so much in common. And of course he showed me his famous strut at the
bar.’

So, when Will contacted Jagger afresh to enquire about a collaboration, he got an affirmative response. ‘Come down,’ Jagger told him, ‘I want to hear the song.’ Once the
old rocker heard it, he agreed to join Will in the studio the very next day to record his part. Will’s long-term producer and friend Jimmy Iovine could hardly believe his luck when he got the
chance to produce a song featuring Jagger. He put the scale of his excitement into words for Will when he said, ‘When I was younger I wanted to be Mick Jagger – what A Tribe Called
Quest is to you, that was Mick for me.’

Will believes in striking while the iron is hot, and life has sometimes cruelly shown this to be a sensible approach. The year 2012 began with the unexpected death of another icon with whom Will
had worked. Whitney Houston died in Los Angeles at the age of forty-eight. When Will heard of her death, he posted his immediate feelings on Twitter. ‘I’m so sad, Whitney Houston was so
kind, sweet, wonderful, amazing, talented and a true gift to the world’, he tweeted. He added later: ‘#iwillalwaysloveyou’.

Later still, when Will remembered working with the soul star, his memories included the omnipresent figure of his mother, Debra. ‘When I was working with Whitney
Houston she reminded me of my mom, just how graceful and polite she was,’ he told the
Guardian
. ‘I told Whitney this and she said: “Let me see the proof of that, you
should bring her down!” I called up and said: “Ma, get your butt down to my house this minute! Whitney Houston wants to see you so she can see your personality!” She loved
Whitney.’

It was a testing start to what was proving a typically industrious year for Will.

Meanwhile, there were other challenges to be negotiated. He and his two male bandmates filed a lawsuit against their former financial adviser, Sean Larkin, accusing him of costing them over $3
million (£1.8 million). (Fergie has her own separate financial manager and therefore was uninvolved in this suit.) Their suit claimed that Sean M. Larkin ‘falsely represented ... on
numerous occasions that he was taking care of everything and that they had nothing to worry about’, according to a report in the
Los Angeles Times
. Larkin had, several months
previously, admitted in a deposition that he had ‘got in over my head with the amount of clients I had’.

Will had another problem when his car was stolen as
he attended the launch party for his own solo album. He had been photographed alongside the car as he arrived at the bash
at the Avalon Hotel in Beverly Hills, but when he left at 2 a.m. it was nowhere to be seen. ‘My car was stolen ... what the f**k,’ he wrote on Twitter. ‘Where is my f**king car
...??? This isn’t funny anymore. I’m going to be optimistic and pray that my car is returned and safe. #givemebackmycar this joke is getting old ...’

His use of the word ‘joke’ to describe what had happened was precise: Will believed that there was a good chance the car’s disappearance was more of a prank than a crime. For
that reason, he stated on Twitter, he did not intend immediately to contact the police about the disappearance of his custom-made DeLorean. ‘I’m not going to the police ... spread the
word via tweets in case I’m getting punk’d’, he wrote. ‘I don’t want to waste tax dollars on pranks #wheresmycar’.

He later returned to Twitter, to write: ‘I’m going to be optimistic and pray that my car is returned and is safe’, adding that he believed the punishment for its disappearance
should be ‘hard and swift’. Two months earlier the car had been impounded by police after it was found to be unregistered.

Prior to the car disappearance, the biggest story at Will’s party had been the arrival of a scantily clad Lindsay Lohan.
The controversial, much-derided socialite
announced that she wanted to work with Will. How he took that news is unknown. However, he was thrilled when he discovered his car had been found by businessman Ryan Friedlinghaus. Will tweeted:
‘my car has been found ... #bestnewsever thank you so much ryan ...’ However, on the car being returned to him, Will quickly discovered that some of its contents were missing. He hired
private detectives to probe the mystery.

His enigmatic personal life continued to draw much speculation. In April, he was rumoured to be dating the former Spice Girl, Geri Halliwell. When she joined him at the Rose
Club in London, where he was performing a short solo set, tongues were set wagging. ‘It definitely seemed like they were on a date,’ the ubiquitous, unnamed ‘eye-witness’
told the
Sun
. ‘They were both really giggly with each other and were laughing all night. They arrived separately and left again at different times.’ Within weeks, Halliwell was
revealed to be dating not Will but another celebrity – kooky comedian Russell Brand.

At the time of writing, Will’s preferences remain mysterious. On the rare occasions that he speaks about his
sex life, he tends to masterfully balance each revelation
with a further smoke-screen, forever leaving the world guessing. ‘I’m not a gold digger, I’m a boob digger,’ he told the
Sun
in 2010. ‘I like boobs. But I was
always the homie, the friend, rather than the lover. I’d have a crush on a girl and she’d say, “I don’t know, Will, I see you as my brother”.’

In a rare candid moment, he told
ES
magazine what romance was like for him. He said that, for him, it is ‘just deep’. He added: ‘Then I like… [huge pause] then
I get deep. Like, almost spiritual. Like spiritual and science. The marriage of the two. For me, love is like … that’s why it’s hard. I like talking about deep shit. Just lying
in bed, snuggle-wuggles, conversation. I like to communicate, conversate, dive into freakin’ theories.’

He entered more comfortable territory when, in early August 2012, he drove to NASA mission control to watch the Curiosity Rover land on Mars. At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena,
California, he watched with childlike wonderment as the rover touched down in the early hours of the morning. He was there to listen as his song, ‘Reach for the Stars’, was the first
piece of music ever to be broadcast back to Earth from Mars. He shared his excitement with his Twitter following. ‘I’m here @ #jpl ... I am proud to care and have passion for #stem ...
watching humanity at its finest ...’ he wrote. The song was beamed
300 million miles back to Earth, so it could be heard at the JPL, where NASA staff danced and cheered
as the accomplishment was confirmed.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said: ‘will.i.am has provided the first song on our playlist of Mars exploration.’

‘It seems surreal,’ said Will. Wearing a grey suit as he spoke to a student audience, he added: ‘I didn’t want to do a song that was done on a computer. I wanted to show
human collaboration and have an orchestra there and something that would be timeless, and translated in different cultures, not have like a hip-hop beat or a dance beat. A lot of times ... people
in my field aren’t supposed to try to execute something classical, or orchestral, so I wanted to break that stigma.’

This attention to detail was extraordinary. Even when he was breaking the boundary of having the first song played from Mars, Will was ensuring that he broke musical boundaries while doing so.
Including in the recording a forty-piece orchestra, complete with French horns, he had handed the song a cinematic, iconic flavour. There was widespread respect for Will in the wake of his
achievement. Only the
Register
and MSN, it seemed, had an issue with the broadcast, the former describing it as: ‘A depressing day for space and technology’, while MSN mocked
the song’s
lyrics, and sneered: ‘We can’t help thinking there are better songs to have introduced music to the Red Planet with’.

Just hours after he had celebrated his Mars moment, Will was brought crashing back to earth when he crashed his Cadillac into a parked car in Los Angeles. One way or another, the summer of 2012
was not proving to be a happy one in automotive terms. Following what he described as ‘a long day and night’ in the recording studio with Cheryl Cole, at 3.30 a.m., with Cheryl in the
passenger seat beside him, Will accidentally smashed his £100,000 car into a parked vehicle. Eyewitnesses said that his airbag opened and struck him in the face. Though the contact gave him a
nosebleed, it certainly saved him from a potentially worse fate.

Cole’s passenger airbag failed to work, and she was reportedly thrown face first into the car’s plush dashboard. She, too, was left with a nosebleed and bruising. Photographs of her
clutching her face, with blood pouring from her nose were quickly snapped by fast-moving photographers. Police were called to the scene and the pair went to Cedars Sinai hospital. Will emerged
later wearing a neck brace.