Will.i.am by Danny White

Author:Danny White [White, Danny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782430193
Publisher: Michael O' Mara Books

5 The E.N.D. and the Beginning

During the summer of 2009, The Black Eyed Peas made chart history when they had singles simultaneously at number one and number two in the US Billboard chart. How they got to such a position itself tells the story of their fifth album: The E.N.D.

For Will, that story began down under in Sydney, Australia. He was there to film his part in a new movie, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Having made his cinematic debut voicing the part of a hippo named Moto Moto in the 2008 animated film Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, he took a step up with the X-Men franchise. He explained his role, and its filming, in an interview with MTV. ‘I’m a teleporter, I’m here, I’m there, I’m everywhere. Boom, boom, boom!’ he said. ‘My character’s name is John Wraith. He’s a black Texan. He’s not a cowboy, but his gear suggests that he is. He’s just a badass who’ll whoop your ass.’

He was so excited to land the part, and had a battle scar to show for his involvement. He explained that he acquired the scar during the filming of an intense scene. ‘It was my fight scene. I was real into it, and then I missed my mark, and I punched the camera and broke the lens! But that goes to show you. I ain’t to be messed with, because I break lenses!’

The camera was fixed and filming resumed, but, by Will’s own admission, the scene had to be reshot a number of times before he nailed it. ‘It probably took me fifty times, but I got it. It was hard for me, but it was cool and fun at the same time.’ (Another challenge the experience threw up was its placing of Will alongside the action-movie hero actor Hugh Jackman. Will said that this made him feel fat in comparison. ‘Hugh is ripped, man,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘I saw him every morning and felt bad about my body.’)

While filming in Australia, he had asked some youngsters where the best hip-hop clubs could be found. They could not know it at the time, but their reply would ultimately shape the sound of the next Black Eyed Peas’ album. They told him that as far as they were concerned it was not hip-hop that was cool any more, but electro music. He investigated the scene and was enlivened and inspired as a result. He loved this new sub-genre of dance music, with its basic, but almost hypnotizing, beats.

He returned to Los Angeles even more inspired than usual and told his bandmates all about his discovery. Together, they continued and deepened the research into the burgeoning electro scene so they could incorporate it into their own material.

Taboo was not immediately won over by the plan, but Will was insistent. ‘This is the shit that is going to take us to places we have never been,’ Will told him. He then told the rest of the band that the electro sound was

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