Free Will.i.am by Danny White Page A

colour in the music world.’
    In 2002, the sell-out allegations had reached their peak when the band featured on an advertisement for the softdrink giant, Dr Pepper. For Will, their involvement in the
project was a true ‘eureka’ moment. It was also something that he easily resolved in his own mind. ‘I realized I made more money doing a thirty-second piece of music than two
hours worth of music,’ he said. He also insisted that the band retained control over all the creative aspects of the project. To him, this meant there was nothing wrong with their getting
involved, whatever the snipers might say. ‘If you are in control of the video, which we were, if you are in control of the clothes, the song, which we were … what’s not to like?
And the people are getting the music for free anyway … so who cares?’ Will believes that even performing something as ostensibly authentic as a live concert puts his band at the
epicentre of a storm of commercial activity – including the sponsorship of the venue, the petrol bought as a result of the thousands of fans driving to the concert and so on.
    *
    The second single from the album was called ‘Shut Up’, a catchy song about the break-up of a relationship, and the song that had brought Fergie to the party. It
reached number one in fifteen countries. In 2010, funk star George Clinton took legal action against the band, claiming they had used a sample from his 1970s song ‘(Not Just) Knee Deep’
withouthis permission. It was a testing moment for Will when news of the suit first reached him. (The case would be settled in 2012. Although the terms were not disclosed, in a
court filing, mediator Gail Killefer said the settlement ‘fully’ resolved the dispute.)
    So hectic had been the response to
Elephunk
, that for the band members it sometimes felt as if they had gone from relative obscurity to international acclaim overnight.
    Will, meanwhile, had been hard at work on his second solo album. Entitled
Must B 21
, it is a seventeen-track release that was described by RapReviews.com as ‘an exercise in
hip-hop in its purest most unadulterated form, packed into a highly concentrated dose’. The same reviewer urged people to buy the album not just to enjoy its music, but also to support
Will’s solo career and the fortunes of the label, Barely Breaking Even, through which he was releasing the material. Lest the critic appear to be asking people to buy it on only a charitable
basis, he concluded: ‘It deserves to go gold, because it’s that damn good.’
    Will hired an impressive selection of fellow artists to appear on the album, including KRS-One, MC Lyte, Planet Asia and Phife from A Tribe Called Quest. Their contributions took the album to a
higher plane than Will’s debut solo effort. His track ‘Go!’ was featured on the Xbox computer game soundtrack for NBA Live 2005.
    Will was about to take a break from the solo wing of his output:
Must B 21
ensured he did so from a position of some strength. When he returned, it would be in a
more fully solo sense, with the mass of collaborating guests consigned to the past.
    First, though, he had to hold on tight as his already soaring band rocketed ever higher. The Black Eyed Peas were proving to be an unstoppable force. No wonder a growing number of other famous
artists were so keen to join the fun.

4 Collaboration
    W hen Will attended the 2005 MOBO Awards in London, the highlight of the evening should have been the sight of hip-hop royalty Public Enemy landing
the ‘Outstanding Contribution to Black Music’ gong. The genre-defining rap icons are a band that Will has often admired, but while he was delighted to see them recognized in this way,
he was not about to switch his opportunistic senses off for the evening. His mind ticking away as quickly as ever, Will glanced around the venue to see which other musical figures were ‘in
the house’ for the ceremony. Suddenly, he noticed that one of his