Will.i.am Read Online Free Page A

valuable in a different way: a sense of exciting hope. Will was learning quickly the
methodology behind a good song and he soon realized that writing lyrics frompersonal experience was the best route to a powerful song. He also tended to eschew the use of long
words, feeling that simplicity was key to the creation of a catchy message. However, the lyrics were not the part of the composition he generally started with, because he also lived by the rule:
rhythm comes first, words later. Indeed, his style of songwriting quickly developed a regular sequence, which lasted into the formation of the Black Eyed Peas. Taboo, who would also be a member of
that band, described it as: ‘rhythm-became-mumbles-became-words-became-lyrics-became song’.
    As well as hanging out at club nights such as Club What?, Will began to attend raves in Los Angeles. Alongside a childhood friend called Pasquale (Pasquale Rotella, now the boss of Insomniac
Events and architect of the annual electronic dance music festival Electric Daisy Carnival), he partied the nights away at some huge and thrilling events.
    Will, quite the technology buff nowadays as we shall see, has looked back fondly on the movement around these parties. At the time they seemed to be cutting edge but now elements of their
organization seem quaint. ‘In LA in the early, early 1990s, there were raves that were like secret clubs, and thousands of people would go, and the way you found out about it was you went to
a map point and the map point gave you another map point and that map pointgave you directions,’ he said, during a conversation with the
LA Times
. ‘Way
before pagers, way before cell phones and the Internet. You physically had to go to two locations to get the address. Tens of thousands of people would show up in the desert or in the warehouses or
these secret locations where the raves would be.’
    These were exciting events with thronging attendances. ‘There would be, you know, between 10,000 and 50,000 people,’ he told the
Guardian
. ‘People would express
themselves with loud colours, DJs would play crazy beats,’ he added. Asked whether these gatherings were legal or not, he admitted they were not. ‘[They were] illegal, yes, all right,
OK, you got me there,’ he said. ‘We were kids!’
    It is worth restating that Will was still a schoolboy as he and Pasquale partied the night away at these raves. He was, in fact, a tenth-grade pupil. The morning after one of these raves, he and
his classmates would be discussing their night out as they sat down in the classroom. He remembers whispering with classmates about how ‘crazy’ a night out had been, and a classmate
turning round to tell him: ‘Dude, I’m still rolling.’
    Will admits that other kids at his school took drugs at these raves, though he denies he did. ‘I’m talking about eleventh-graders, fifteen-year-olds in high school,’ he said.
‘Where I was going to high school people were rolling, andcoming down from the drug. I didn’t do that stuff, and Pasquale didn’t do that stuff. But we went,
and we liked the vibe and the scene.’
    That vibe and scene captured Will’s imagination in such a way that it has, at the time of writing at least, yet to release its grip. The rave scene quickly peaked and, in its most exciting
and authentic form, disappeared. However, some acts have kept the flame alive by incorporating its light into their own material. The Black Eyed Peas are one of those bands. More immediately, back
then, these nights out were great ways for Will to release any tension inside him. His teenage troubles seemed to melt away as he danced.
    He was also paying close attention to the music coming out of his radio at the time. He noted the way that hip-hop was up-tempo in this era, and the influence that this had on rave culture.
Songs such as ‘It Takes Two’, which he clocked in at 127 beats per minute, and Jungle Brothers, Technotronic and Queen Latifah tracks