TEST OF WILL
WILL.I.AM TALKS TO MARION MCMULLEN ABOUT MUSIC IN A PANDEMIC AND ADAPTING TO LIFE POST-COVID
‘I’VE never had this much sanitizer around me at one point in time,” sighs will.i.am.
The Black Eyed Peas rapper and Voice UK coach has lost family members and close friends to Covid and says: “A lot of friends have recovered from it, but people I know have been hit hard by Covid. For everybody that has lost family, I also know people who have had Covid and who have struggled to beat it.”
It makes him think the world post-covid could be a very different place: “You know I did my daily walk e arlier and to see mid-day emptiness of the streets is very awkward. It’s not a good thing.”
He says there are already signs of everyone being more health conscious. “Already people are more cautious about what they put in their bodies or about touching things and then touching their face,” he says.
“I think there is a whole new wave of cautious, conscious living and well-being and it’s going to spread post-covid.”
will-iam says he is looking forward to travelling again but adds “at the same time
I hope people are cautious about how they enter the world again. There are still a lot of people that don’t believe, the mask refusers, so yeah, going to the gym is going to be a very weird thing. Just going into a room where everybody’s sweating germs all over the dumbbells.”
The music star, who turned 46 this month, has enjoyed international success with the Black Eyed Peas with hits like Where Is The Love?, My Humps, and I Gotta Feeling.
The American group has continued to stay relevant by breaking the barriers to international, non-english speaking markets and producing party anthems for a global audience. He and fellow band members Apl.de.ap and Taboo’s recent crossborder collaborations have seen them working with Israeli pop sensations Static & Ben El on Shake Ya Ya Boom Boom – which the duo originally sang in Hebrew – and Latin global superstars Shakira, Nicky Jam, Maluma, Ozuna, J Balvin and Anitta.
Static & Ben El’s English version of the Black Eyed Peas song can now boast 500 million streams and wil.i.am says: “In the world of music, we always have technology and communicating and collaborating... whether you are in the room or not.
“Working with Static & Ben El, it’s been great but sad at the same time because I wish I could have gone to Israel to create the video in Tel Aviv. I love it there. It’s awesome. I like the idea of how technology connects us all but there’ll always be the old way of doing things face to face.”
He feels touring will be different when it is allowed again.
“I remember travelling and performing with a cold because that’s the first thing that happens when you start to tour. The first week you are going to get sick because you’re in all these new environments and going from places that are super-cold to super-hot. You are touching all this stuff on tour and you get sick,” he says.
“So that is going to be a weird one because, as soon as you tour again, that first week they will be sending everyone home.”
So in a year from now what would will.i.am like to see? “The world opened up so people can travel, people going out partaking of festivities, celebrating life. People learning and preparing for tomorrow. New technologies to make how we live and play safer.
“This time last year I was working on the new Black Eyed Peas project Translations and that was all I was listening to and here we are a year later and working on the new Black Eyed Peas project and that’s all I’m listening to.”
Static & Ben El’s single Shake Ya Boom Boom featuring the Black Eyed Peas is out now
Already people are more cautious about what they put in their bodies or about touching things
will.i.am on how Covid has changed our mentality