I had the best childhood despite the gangs and drive-by shootings

As the star gets ready to return to our TV screens with The Voice Kids he talks to RICHARD BARBER about fatherhood, Kanye West and his greatest extravagance

collecting spectacles and has just designed a range for Specsavers, and the LA native having a love affair with the UK.

“Is Britain like my second home?” he says. “No, it’s my first. LA’s now my second home. I’m usually in the UK 10 days a month but only five a month in LA on average. The other 15 days I’m in New York, the Middle East, China, San Francisco.

“I like London best. The traffic sucks but I feel at home here. They say that Londoners are snobby but that’s not my experience. I think they’re friendly. And I can’t even imagine a robbery with an English accent. It would sound too polite.”

The contrasts continue: he drives a Tesla Model S “because it’s the best car on the Earth” but confesses that the most expensive he has ever bought is his Bentley GT coupe. “It’s in my garage in LA… I don’t drive it any more because it’s not as fast as the Tesla.”

This embracing of contradictions extends to his upbringing. Born in Eastside Los Angeles he was raised in the rough Estrada Courts housing projects in Boyle Heights, where he and his mother were among the few African-American families in a mostly Hispanic community. He remembers it now as “violent” but also “full of love”.

“I grew up in a violent Mexican neighbourhood of gang fights and drive-by shootings,” he says. “And yet I remember it as the most lovely time. I know that sounds weird. Every week, every month, somebody got shot. But all the while it was the best childhood because there was so much love in the community. Everyone looked out for everyone else. The gangs fought each other. But we were all tight.

“I’d line up for free powdered milk and cheese. But then so would everyone else. School gave you breakfast and lunch; all you had to worry about was dinner. And poor people were serving poor people. So you didn’t feel inferior.”

And despite the life he enjoys now, with millions in the bank and a Bentley in the garage, he is also very conscious of those roots – and of the poverty of his ancestors before him. He is still angry about comments made by his friend Kanye West concerning slavery and how it may have been a “choice”.

“That broke my heart,” he says, “My grandma’s grandma was a slave. And when you’re a slave, you’re owned. You don’t choose if you’re owned… She had no rights, she was whipped. That’s not a choice, that’s by force.

“I just hope it wasn’t said so he can sell a record and some shoes because that would be the worst thing… to stir up this very touchy race situation and be the benefactor from it. So I would encourage him to give his shoes away for free, give his album away for free. I don’t like going against my community but what he said was harmful. I would never throw my ancestors under the bus for profit.”

And perhaps that’s the other great contrast at the heart of will.i.am’s infectious, hyperactive personality: on top of everything else he does, he might just see himself as a role model too. And that’s why The Voice Kids means so much more to him than the adult version of the show.

Ask him what single piece of advice he’d give to any young person today and he doesn’t hesitate: “People are going to tell you that you can’t do this and you can’t do that,” he says. “There will be people who try to put barriers in front of you. Ignore them.”

The will.i.am collection is in Specsavers stores now at £125 per pair and included in the two-forone offer. Details: specsavers.co.uk