TheGrio’s 100: Will.i.am, musician and political force

TheGrio's 100 - The co-founder and frontman of the Grammy-winning Black Eyed Peas, raised in Los Angeles in a family with a largely absent father...

TheGrio Staff

Feb 9, 2010

He could have been another black male casualty of a broken home, but William Adams, better known as Will.i.am, had other plans.

The co-founder and front man of the Grammy-winning Black Eyed Peas (most recently Best Pop Vocal Album at the 2010 awards), raised in Los Angeles in a family with a largely absent father, was encouraged early in life to make a statement of his own identity and originality. As a teenager, Will did exactly that – becoming a rapper at various L.A. clubs, and with a longtime friend forming the nucleus of what would become the Black Eyed Peas. Today, they are as much an entertainment juggernaut as a group. But Will.i.am kept his flair for originality very much alive, and did so in venues beyond the stage.

He drew fire last year for violating a doctrine of African-American decorum, daring to propose that the N.A.A.C.P. change its name to more widely reflect the breadth of its mission — to retire “Colored People” to the scrap heap of American language and use “Concerned People” instead. And Will.i.am spoke his truth to power in a powerful way during the 2008 presidential campaign.

His ‘Yes We Can’ video in support of Barack Obama’s presidency was a moving, populist statement whose viral reach galvanized supporters and helped focus the world’s attention on how the world was changing. Last month, in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti, Will spent hours working the phone banks at CNN’s relief effort.

For more on Will.I.Am’s Interview Click Here

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Cynics may say it’s face time, a canny burnishing of his street cred in front of the cameras. But his visibility on a range of issues, and his apparent commitment to social change indicate a man who — like Bono, like Dylan, like Lennon before him — is an artist of vast privilege, resources and style whose sense of moral witness keeps him accessible, vital to this generation and the next.

WATCH WILL.I.AM RECORD MUSIC WITH YOUNG MUSICIANS IN LOS ANGELES HERE:
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