The Diary of a CEOwill.i.am Opens Up: Depression, Creativity & ADHD!
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
125 min read · 25,199 words- 0:00 – 2:03
Intro
- WIwill.i.am
We've been set up to fail. AI didn't do that. People did that. Now here's a tool for us to solve our problems ourself now.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Here we go.
- WIwill.i.am
Will.I.Am, drop the beats, El.
- NANarrator
Yep.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Producer, singer, rapper. This man does it all.
- WIwill.i.am
Seven-time Grammy winner. One of the industry's biggest names. Man, that's lyrical.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WIwill.i.am
When we started the Black Eyed Peas, no one believed in us. Now we're playing Super Bowls, World Cups, Grammies. You have to be hyper-creative. You can't grow anything without it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But there's a cost to creativity, right? What's it like to be in your head?
- WIwill.i.am
I'm always thinking, analyzing everything. Get it, get it, go, go, make it, make it, ugh. That's not good. That's not healthy.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- WIwill.i.am
You make errors. You hurt people. I remember I got into like a, a dark period when I felt something that I've never felt before, this like distortion. People want you to fail, but the anxiety comes when you're worried about what people think, when it's things that are happening that you didn't control. You have to be optimistic. You have to arm yourself with optimism and purpose. That's what it's about. That path was the hardest path in my life.
- SBSteven Bartlett
This is a window into the mind of a creative, a divergent, an entrepreneur, artist, and visionary, someone we all know, but at the same time, someone we don't really know at all. If you're a creative, an artist, an entrepreneur, or someone with big ideas for the future, or just someone that's struggling to balance your professional ambitions with your personal pursuits, this conversation was meant to find you. Enjoy. Will,
- 2:03 – 8:06
Early context
- SBSteven Bartlett
I am fascinated with people. That is why I started doing this many years ago, because I have... I, I've come to learn about myself that I have a real desire to understand people, because from that, I think I can understand myself, because I think at the kind of foundational level, w- w- we're all quite similar as human beings 'cause we're all related, if we go back far enough. So in a pursuit to understand you, I guess my first question is, um, what is, what is the context of Will that I need to know to understand the man that sat here in front of me today? The earliest context, the kind of kitchen that Will was, um, was, was conceived in, was, was, was cooked in at, at the earliest age?
- WIwill.i.am
You write songs?
- SBSteven Bartlett
No, I don't. I write a lot, but I don't write songs.
- WIwill.i.am
'Cause see, like, uh, I get interviewed a lot, but very rarely do you get interviewed by wordsmiths. Um, the kitchen I was stewed in, cooked in, pretty, uh... I like the visual of that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
Um, because the chef would be my mom, and the kitchen would be the ghettos of East Los Angeles, Boyle Heights specifically, and that was encouragement, acknowledgement of our individual... When I say our, my family, like we all have our little superpower. And my superpower was creativity, and creativity has always been my currency when I had no money. I clearly was like, "Ooh, look, Ma. Look what I made." "Willie, that's really good." "You really like that, Ma?" "Yeah." And I would... She would... Encouragement goes a long way. And then that type of encouragement from my mom that helped create self-belief, fearlessness to express, to share, to go in class and solve problems or raise my hand, "I got the answer to that," um, that's really what fueled, fueled me is my mom. "Let Willie solve it. Let Willie try to fix that," you know? "This radio's broken. Try to fix it." That type of stuff. My mom, salute.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Did she know that you were creative or was she just, um, putting wind in whatever sail you had pulled up?
- WIwill.i.am
My mom was creative. My mom still is creative. She had her sewing machine. She would make our clothes to go to school. That's why most of the clothes I make are still, um, you know, one-offs, two-of, two-offs. I like wearing things that no one has because that's how I grew up. We would go to the thrift store, buy dollar clothes or 50 cent shirts. They would always be too big for me. My mom would fix them and turn old into new. That's, that's how we lived, you know? "Willie, go to the store, take this food stamp, buy me a 25 cents bubble gum. Um, get 75 cents back." Um, and then you go to different stores, do the same thing. So now my mom has coins that she could go and buy other things with food stamps because with food stamps, you only could buy food. You can't buy needles. You can't buy thread. You can't buy fabric. You can't buy appliances. You only could buy food.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
"So take this dollar, give me 25 cents gum, which is food. 75 cents change back. Go to different stores and do that. Now let's go and buy other things." And so she'll buy those other things and she'll make stuff for us. So my mom has always been like super ultra creative. So my mom is my biggest inspo.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I've heard you refer to her as being your mum and your dad-
- WIwill.i.am
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... in your household.
- WIwill.i.am
So when you, when you grow up in a, in a household where there's, there's only the mom-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
... I'm like, every Father's Day, "Happy Father's Day, Ma." "Thank you, Willie." "And Happy Mother's Day, Ma."
- SBSteven Bartlett
In those contexts, it's easy for a kid to go one of two ways though-And I think that's what people often don't realize is when you're in a context where outside of the house, there's a lot of temptations either way, but inside the house, it takes a really, really strong mother, if she is a single mother, to make sure she creates her own universe so that those kids can end up in a different place. And that's what I, kind of, read from a lot of the stories of your mother, is that rigor and discipline and those values.
- WIwill.i.am
Yeah, there was a... (clears throat) We had this next door neighbor in the projects and she couldn't read or write and then people used to make fun of her and my mom was like, "Now, if we all went to Japan and we had to go out there and survive..."
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WIwill.i.am
"... are we not smart? Yes, we're smart. Could we survive out there? Yes, we could. Can we raise kids and raise families to go out and do awesome things in Japan- in, in Japan? Yes, we could. But we will all go to Japan not being able to read or write." So the stigma that we put on folks that can't read or write, could they read people? Yep. Can they write a path to raise folks to go out into the world to do awesome things? Yes. So we value, my mom always valued humanity at its purest and people's intents, um, and the things they want to accomplish before, like, you know, cliche setbacks or... And it's, it was awesome that we were raised in an all-Mexican neighborhood, right? So most people didn't read or write (laughs) in my neighborhood.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WIwill.i.am
Which was beautiful. It was beautiful, you know? I love, I loved being raised in, in East LA. And, uh, we f- we f- we fit, we fitted in. Is that right? Fitted in? We f- 'cause I was gonna say fat in.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Doesn't matter.
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- WIwill.i.am
It's like, pass- it's a fit.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah (laughs) .
- WIwill.i.am
There it go, there goes reading or writing for me.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WIwill.i.am
(laughs) No, I'm joking. (laughs)
- 8:06 – 10:54
Your self story
- WIwill.i.am
- SBSteven Bartlett
What, what was your, your-
- WIwill.i.am
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... yourself, yourself story at that age? Like, what did Will think of... Will, who did you think you were and where did you think you were going in life when you were, like, 14?
- WIwill.i.am
Oh, 14 it was set.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Really?
- WIwill.i.am
I w- Uh, yeah, 14 I wanted to do music. I had these raps that I used to write, and I had these demos that I used to make and I would go to school and I would give my demos to my, my friends. And one of my friends, his name is Stephan Gordy, his dad was Berry Gordy from Motown. And I'm like, "Yo, give this to your dad. Check out my demo." My sister had Teddy Ruxpin. It's like this little teddy bear.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
And it had a cassette in its belly.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WIwill.i.am
And my mom gave that to my sister for Christmas. And for me, she gave me, like, a boombox. It, too, played cassettes. And she got herself a stereo and that stereo had two cassettes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
And came with headphones. And so I got my mom's records and I ha- I had a record player and two tape decks and a headphone. And I don't know what told me to take the headphone, put it in the microphone jack, take my sister's Barbie Rockers tape, put tape over the left side of the cassette tape-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
... re- record over it. Get my mom's record, play the favorite part, press p- un-pause, record, pause it when my favorite part was over, play it again and make a loop.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
Put the tape and the play, put another... sister's, um, my sister's Teddy Ruxpin tape, put it in there, do the same thing, record over it, now press play on my loop that's for three minutes and rap over it. Take m- the, the Teddy Ruxpin tape with my newly formed song over loops, stereo loops-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
... put it in Teddy Ruxpin, press play and make Teddy Ruxpin rap.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WIwill.i.am
So my mom was like, "You did that, boy?" I'm like, "Yeah, Ma, look."
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WIwill.i.am
She was like, "You should take that to class for your, for, uh, show and tell." They were like, "Wow, William." Uh, at that point in time, I was William.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
"Wow, William, that's really cool. You did that?" "Yeah, I did that." "Woo." The song was whatever, um, for a 10-year-old. Um, so then y- you graduate sixth grade at 12. So from, from 10, 11, 12, it was clear that my elementary school, I had, like, a different level of creativity.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Sure.
- WIwill.i.am
So when I went to junior high school, um, it was clear what my superpower was. I was creative and I wanted, I wanted (laughs) to, uh, express myself
- 10:54 – 14:27
Figuring out you were poor
- WIwill.i.am
in that, in that realm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Were you confident? Whatever, however you define that. And what I, I guess what I mean by confident is, like, secure in oneself and confident in their abilities and social, um, value, I guess.
- WIwill.i.am
It happened in, in, in three steps. I didn't know we were poor, and then I found out we were poor. And I found out we were poor when one year, my teacher, Ms. Rich, she said, "You gotta come to school with canned food and boxed food so we could give to the poor families." And I come home, I'm like, "Ma, my homework assignment this- tonight is to go to school, I gotta pick through the cupboards and give canned foods and boxed foods for my homework assignment tomorrow." She's like, "Will, you ain't going to school with no food." I'm like, "Mom, but I'm g- I'm gonna fail the class. I'm gonna, I'm gonna get a fail on, on my, on my grade. I have to turn this in." "Well, I guess you gonna get a fail 'cause you ain't leaving this house with no food." So I go to school empty-handed. I don't, you know, complete the assignment. Then I see my, the rich white kids coming up the corridor. I'm like, "Hey, what's up, Brent? What up, Brad? What you guys doing here?" "Yeah, we came here to bring the, the food to the poor family."I'm like, "Oh really?" So I start walking with them and we go to my house. I'm like, "Wait, that food's for us?" We qualified and the school gave us that food. And that's when I realized we were poor. So I go back to school and they made fun of me for a couple of days. "William, he's, William's poor. We dropped the food off in his house." This one girl comes up to me, she's like, "William, are you poor? How can you be poor if you always wear suits to school?" 'Cause my mom used to make us wear suits.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
So it wasn't like a uniform school. It was like dress the way you wanna dress, but my mom put me in suits every day. And so the kids were like, "Why do you always wear suits to school? How could you be poor?" And my mom would say, "You ain't going to school with no play clothes. You're going, you ain't going to school to play, you're going to school to learn, so you put on these, like you go to church to, to learn about God, you're going to church to learn about, you know, life. And so put this suit on." So although there were like four or five people that were saying I was the poor kid that got the food, but then the rest of the kids were like, "No, William's not poor. Look at, he always wears suits to school. You guys are lying." That became my cloth to express yourself because that, that drape, that attire, um, separated me from the gang, separated me from you're poor, you're not, you, you're, you're part of the have-nots. Um, and, uh, expression, just wanted to express my m- Sometimes mom used to say, uh, "Willie, what you doing?" "Nothing." "Get your butt over here." "What's wrong, ma?" "What did I say about saying the word nothing? Even if you sitting there breathing, say I'm breathing or you're thinking about something, you don't got no business saying you doing nothing."
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WIwill.i.am
So I, we, we would have to say what we were doing. We couldn't say nothing 'cause you're never doing nothing. Even if you're breathing, even if your heart's beating, whatever you're thinking of, you know? "What you thinking about?" "Nothing." "Well, then you need to be start thinking about something." We couldn't... She didn't settle for that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WIwill.i.am
You know?
- 14:27 – 18:21
How do we become more creative
- WIwill.i.am
(clears throat)
- SBSteven Bartlett
So let's talk about creativity then 'cause this is what you're really, I mean, this is one of the many things you're really, really known for. So is it possible to become more creative and how does that happen?
- WIwill.i.am
Okay. Let's say it's 1983.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Y- yeah.
- WIwill.i.am
Let's go to the past now.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I was minus nine.
- WIwill.i.am
Or if you're 1993.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay, I was one. (laughs)
- WIwill.i.am
(laughs) If you're in 1993 and you're a musician, the way to be more creative is to look at Prince. Look at Prince. Because Prince was like the ultimate creative force. And the way Prince became creative is he looked at Stevie Wonder. He's like, "Wait, he plays the keyboards, the drums, the bass, he writes the songs. Okay." And Stevie Wonder was ultra creative because he looked at Marvin Gaye, he looked at Ray Charles, but looking from a different perspective obviously 'cause Stevie Wonder can't see, but he, he, uh, felt, he was inspired by, he was motivated by. So if you wanna be creative, more creative, you have to, one, compete. You have to be super analytical on yourself and who you're competing against. You have to be elevated (slurps) you have to take yourself from where you are now and position yourself and see the terrain. You have to be curious, humble, and a predator all at the same time. You have to do all those things to be ultra, hyper creative. You have to be humble to where you walk in the room and you attract 'cause nobody wants to freaking send, you know, perspectives to a dick, to an arrogant ass, no... At some point in time, if you're too arrogant, people stop sending you information. People don't... They wanna see you... They want you to fail. And they start sending you information for you to fail when you're arrogant. So you gotta get rid of that. Be humble. You have to be, you have to be a predator. You have to walk into a room ready to eat. But, but you can't eat everything because then you have to be selective on what you eat.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What about hard work?
- WIwill.i.am
Hard work? Hard work's relative because to some, well, this is not hard work, this is just what I do.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
My pinky to my lung, my pinky thinks my lung is working hard because I have to tell my pinky when to move my mind. My mind ain't have, has no control over my lungs. My lungs are working involuntarily. If I tell my lungs to stop, I could do that, but then it's just gonna kick in on its own. My heart's even more involuntary. I can't will like, "Oh, okay. Okay, stop. Stop now. Stop. You've been beating for freaking 48 years. I mean, you need to take a break." It's what it does. You cannot... Yeah, you can meditate, you could slow your heart rate down, but you can't make it stop, bro. So hard work is relative to which organ or who or what environment you're working in. And then there's tools. What tools do you need to be hyper creative? You need a humble heart, you need a fierce, competitive predator type of, um, vibe as well. You have to be disciplined 'cause you can't eat everything.You have to be elevated. You have to see everything. And you have to be magnetic. You have to attract everything.
- 18:21 – 22:34
The relationship with failure & creativity
- WIwill.i.am
- SBSteven Bartlett
What about failure and then also the goals of creativity? 'Cause th- one of the thi- I, th- I think the two things are kind of l- linked, so fear of failure and then what is the goal of creativity? 'Cause if I, if my, if I set myself ... I've just started learning to DJ about a year ago, and if my goal is to become the biggest DJ in the world, that might make me fearful, it's a huge mountain to climb, and that might make me scared of failure, so I might not start. But real creatives seem to, from what I've observed, they don't seem to really give much of a fuck about the outcome as much as other people do. And I ... So what is, you know, what is the right goal for creativity, and how does ... what role does fear and failure play in being a good creative?
- WIwill.i.am
The reason why you're fearful is because you're worried about what people think.
- SBSteven Bartlett
That's true.
- WIwill.i.am
And if you're worried about what people think, then maybe true creative is not what you are. You just got the costume of creative on. 'Cause creativity, when you're creating and it's, like, a, a rinse, whether the rinse, a sponge absorbs, and eventually you gotta rinse it out so it can absorb more. Do you think a sponge is like, "Oh, man, I don't want people to judge how I'm rinsing myself out or I'm gonna make a mess"? (laughs) You know what I'm saying? A sponge ain't thinking about that. People are like, "Are you talking about SpongeBob, Will?" Like, no, bro, I'm talking about just, like, the metaphor of absorbing and rinsing. Or let's say vomiting. It's powerful. You can't control it. And that's creativity. And some people will be like, "Yeah, that's right, Will. You'll ... the stuff you make is like vomit. You make me w-" No. If that's what you think, I don't care. I have to let it out. It's like shitting. Now people could say, "Yeah, will.i.am, your shit is like shit." But I'm gonna ask you which farmer does not need manure to grow and cultivate. You need it. You cannot farm without it. You can't grow anything without it. It's like cycles of life, and creativity is that. The moment, the moment you start worrying about people's opinion, then you definitely, by default, are not a creative. You're doing it for the wrong reasons.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is the right reasons?
- WIwill.i.am
To let it out, to rinse yourself. It's like a ... You absorb, you rinse.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Nothing you've said is about the impact it then has on the world or others.
- WIwill.i.am
Well, no, that's a different tool.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Right.
- WIwill.i.am
And then once you, once you real- once you've mastered, like, I absorbed, I rinse, and that becomes therapeutic and you see in how that helps you, then you're like, "Wow, wait, if it's helping me, well, then I can be strategic and I could do something to help others."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
First it has to help you. You make sense of the world and whatever it is you're doing, whether you're painting, you're cooking, you're teaching, you're tutoring, you're making songs, you're making dance, you're writing films, you're doing journals, whatever it is you're doing, you would have absorbed the world and rinsed and contributed in some way that brings progress to yourself and others.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Quick one before we get back to this episode. Just give me 30 seconds of your time. Two things I wanted to say. The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show week after week. It means the world to all of us, and this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place. But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started. And if you enjoy what we do here, please join the 24% of people who watch this channel regularly and have hit that subscribe button. It means more than I can say. And if you hit that subscribe button, here's a promise I'm gonna make to you. I'm gonna do everything in my power to make this show as good as I can now and into the future. We're gonna deliver the guests that you want me to speak to and we're gonna continue to keep doing all of the things you love about this show. Thank you. Thank you so much.
- 22:34 – 24:01
Relationships
- SBSteven Bartlett
Back to the episode. Relationships. What role do you ... 'Cause I, I didn't get into a relationship till I was, like, tw- really until I was, like, 28. Again, I thought it was a hindrance on my chances of professional success. And then at some point I felt lonely. And I didn't know what loneliness really was, but I just could feel something. What's the point? You know?
- WIwill.i.am
When you have this mission ... I'm, I'm, I'm mission driven. I'm like, "What are we trying to accompli- what am I trying to accomplish 10 years from now? What's my five-year plan? What's my 10-year plan? How did I do my last five-year tenure?" And, uh, if there's someone that can help you that you could relate to, to help you ship this vision from the ... in your mind to the future ... I, I have a different understanding of relationship. It's like because you wanna relate with someone that you could ship things with, whether you're shipping in a piece of you to the future or you're shipping a piece of you to the future. And if you can relate to that person to help you on your journey, that's awesome. It all depends on what you're shipping.
- 24:01 – 30:25
What’s it like being in your head?
- SBSteven Bartlett
What's it like to be in your head? I know that's hard because you've never been in someone else's, but, you know, you probably figured out from conversations that there's a ... you think in a different way.
- WIwill.i.am
Yeah, so thinking a lot. I think a lot. I'm always thinking. Not about nothing, I'm always thinking about something. Like, it's very rare that I'm just sitting around like, "Oh, wow, look at that chandelier." I'm thinking like, "I wonder how they made, or wait, I wonder, how much did that weigh? What material is that?" Like, I'm always thinking and analyzing everything. I'm like a scanner. Every time. Every moment. And that can be overbearing to someone (laughs) you're in a relationship with. That could close them up. That can like, "Wait, wait, wha- that, that's not good. That's not healthy." And, uh, and I realized that. Took a long time for me to realize that, where I gotta turn that off. I didn't know there was a off switch.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is there one?
- WIwill.i.am
No, there's not an off switch. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
I was gonna say. (laughs) Yeah.
- WIwill.i.am
But there is like a volume knob.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Volume knob, okay.
- WIwill.i.am
(laughs) Um, but, uh, I don't know how to not, like, wait, that, say that again? I don't know how to just take, especially with somebody you're in a relationship with, I don't know how to take like, oh, we're just, we're just at the beach the whole time? You don't wanna go down to explore to see how deep this ocean is? You just wanna chill here on the beach. Like, yo, let's, let's go down to the, let's go to try to find the crevices. Let's go down deep, deep, deep, deep.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And they're saying, no, let's just sunbathe.
- WIwill.i.am
Let's just stay on the beach. And that's cool if, I'm not a beach guy. I'm a deep diver. I'm a freaking, I like the abyss. I like to be like, "Yo, look, what in the what? Look at that." I like that. I like to freaking explore. I like to research. I like to explain, I'm like, "Well, wait, this doesn't make any sense at all. Let's try to make sense of it all. Let's try to make sense of it." Like, I like that. I love that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You, you have ADHD, right? You've c- referred to it as the gift of ADHD. Uh, it's funny 'cause I'm trying to figure out your relationship with stillness and silence. Doesn't seem t- I mean, from what you've said.
- WIwill.i.am
We're assuming that an electron and a proton and a neutron all have the same tasks and goals. So, the electron that I am, the concept of stillness and silence is you have no purpose, 'cause the whole purpose of an electron is to do that, brr.
- SBSteven Bartlett
There's a cost to that, though, that seems exhausting.
- WIwill.i.am
What cost to that, if you're coming from the perspective of the proton looking at the electron whiz around it. But you gotta know who you are in the equation.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
I'm the electron. That's cool, you kick it there, neutrons, they, uh, th- it's cool, you still.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But the proton has something the electron doesn't have, and the pro- and the electron has something the protein doesn't, protein doesn't have.
- WIwill.i.am
Yeah, but they're not supposed to do the same thing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And the, they both have costs and like, they have a good side, like a, a light side and a da- well, a cost and a gift.
- WIwill.i.am
Do they?
- SBSteven Bartlett
So I think of like, I've been, I'm, I would say I'm more whizzing round electron, generally. So I'm just playing devil's advocate here because... When I've, when I've come into my girlfriend's proton world, where things may be a little bit stiller-
- WIwill.i.am
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... there has been gifts to that. There's been gifts to that. And I hear everything you're saying about to be in a relationship you need to be able to lay on the beach. I can't lay on the beach, but I know that's what my girlfriend wants of me. She wants me to be present with her and not to think about the future and to think about where we are right now.
- WIwill.i.am
Yeah, but there's a way to do it from an electron's perspective.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How?
- WIwill.i.am
Um, it's to really look at the word relationship and relate. Even though you can't relate, you have to, uh, have empathy, understanding of what their contribution is, and support.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
And, and be there. So, it, from the perspective of the electron, it is still for the electron. You think the electron's like, "Man, I'm tired."
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WIwill.i.am
"I'm tired of, of whizzing around you the whole time."
- 30:25 – 37:35
Do you want kids..?
- WIwill.i.am
you do, together.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You, you speak of almost, like, a recent epiphany when you say, like, realizing that there was this off button, even though you don't think the off button's necessarily there. What, where, where do you sit now with the, the concept of finding, like, a life partner and getting married and having kids and all that stuff? And is there work to be done? Is it finding the right person or is it an, an inward piece of work that needs to be done in your view? And is it something you, you, you want?
- WIwill.i.am
I want to have kids. I, I'm, I'm going to be a awesome dad. If you were to ask me this, uh, 10 years ago, I would have a different answer.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Really?
- WIwill.i.am
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why has it changed? And what is it now and what was it then?
- WIwill.i.am
That you don't do a family until you completed the ultimate. Well, my version of ultimate. My, my version of ultimate is to be able to be of assistance and help and provide and service folks that resemble the lifestyle that I lived, the hardships that I lived without having to ever raise money ever again. 10 years ago?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- WIwill.i.am
What I know now, I would've had a kid.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You would've had a kid 10 years ago?
- WIwill.i.am
If I know what I know now, yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- WIwill.i.am
I was moving too fast and I thought the only way to get up the mountain is to move the way I moved when I was at the foothill to get to the middle of the mountain. And now that I'm up the mountain, you're thinking that I'm doing, I'm gonna do it by myself still. And the purpose of me getting up the mountain was to take care of my mom. And that was my motivation, that was my gas, that was my electricity, that was my energy is to take care of my family. Hunter-gatherer, to go out and bring back to the village. I didn't know what I didn't know then. Now that I know, would I be able to get up the mountain with family and offspring to take the information that I have and pass it on?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- WIwill.i.am
I have knowledge here. I have knowledge in my DNA. Who do I pass it to if something were to happen to me? Like, it's, like, different type of know- knowledge that you just don't say to someone. It's, like, it's in me, it's stored in me. Somebody gave me this.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Your mom?
- WIwill.i.am
And my grandma and my grandma's grandma. And my grandmother's grandma, that person had a different life. My grandma was born in 1920. My grandma's grandma was born in 18-something? That means it had... Wow, that person was working in the field in somebody's factory, in some unknown company, but in America just called it slavery. Like, that wasn't that long ago. So, but that information was passed on to me, passed on to me, resilience, tolerance, hope, living in a different world so your offspring can have a different life. I'm a recipient of that. But when you're hustling and bustling, you think that, "Oh, no, I got, I got, I gotta wait 'til the ultimate." Was I wrong? Now that I can look back at my... He, he was wrong. But I was right, but still wrong. Would I be a... Would I be further along in my journey? A little bit more organized? Yes. Why? Because something would've forced me to be organized. I could- It's not just for myself now. Even though it was never for myself, it was always for my mom and my family, I would've had even more regiment. I would've had even more streamlined aerodynamics so that I could, you know-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
... you know, cut through corners, you know, and, uh, make tighter turns, keep the downwinds. I would be a little bit more aerodynamic had I, you know... So, yeah. And nothing will stop you if you have kids. Probably just gonna motivate you more, but I couldn't see that back then. Um, but I'm gonna be an, uh, awesome dad when I'm a, when I'm a dad. But I wanna be a full-time dad. And I realized that I don't have to be the, the, the, the, the juggler, um, anymore. Before I had to do it all because no one really believed.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
And so I always had to prove-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
... I had to, like, be the creative, understand business, sit in the business meetings, co-manage. Come up with the artwork, execute the artwork, learn Illustrator, il- learn Photoshop, do the album artwork, hand it off to somebody else to fine-tune what you sketched up. Um, plan the tour with your manage- Like, I had to do it all, but probably 'cause a part of me didn't trust that someone cared as, as much as I cared. But now... Uh, I don't have to do it like that anymore. I've got to a point where now I could assemble teams and fund teams. Now I'm the financier. I don't have to worry about somebody's financing me. That's a different- That's like (sighs) that's an exhale. And so with that exhale, if I, when I'm a dad, I could be a-I could be, um, a full-time dad, as my (laughs) understanding of full-time, which I'll still be- I'll still be working. Just not working the way I'm working now. I don't know... I don't- I don't wanna work the way I used to work.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- WIwill.i.am
Uh, uh, not anymore. Not anymore. I was a proton for the planet-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
... like just going around the planet. Mm... The longest I've been home, since 1998, was all of- the majority of 2002 and then the majority of 2020, like everyone else. Outside of those two years, the longest that I've been in one place has been two months, since 1998. "Oh, gotta go. Oh, only here for two months. See you later. Be back two weeks. Gotta go. Got..." And I've been doing that since ni- Like, I don't want to do that
- 37:35 – 41:48
The symptoms that lead to you wanting to change
- WIwill.i.am
no more.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So, th- you're speaking to a- a changed perspective, and I'm wondering 'cause for me, in my life, there had to be a symptom. There had to be something I noticed where I go, "Do you know what? I'm doing something not right here." So for me, I talked about it being that kind of almost... This feeling of loneliness that I didn't realize was a feeling of loneliness. It was this emptiness in my chest, and you go to the office seven days a week, and then you look at your phone and go, "Who are my friends?" Like, "Who is my partner?" Like, tuning out of survival mode, tuning out of that, and tuning into, like, thrive. Like, "How do I thrive as a human being?" is what made me ch- shift. So really, I'm- I'm c- curious about the symptoms that you noticed in your life that m- made you go, "I don't wanna do that anymore." I n-
- WIwill.i.am
Oh, p- I never had that-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Really?
- WIwill.i.am
... what you're explaining. No. I had my best friends that I grew up with, and we lived our dream to the highest level imaginable. Kids that were broke. Apl, my best friend who w- who came from the Philippines, who I started Black Eyed Peas with, he comes from a province in the Philippines where you pump water out the ground, he washed his clothes on the riverbed, he farmed rice with his pet bison. He di- he experienced a different level of poverty.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
Taboo, single mom. His dad was in the gangs. And we started the Black Eyed Peas, and we lived the, "What? Wait, how- how do we do this, guys? No one believed in us? Now we're playing Super Bowls, World Cups, multiple Grammys, taking care of our families." No, bro. Like, this is the biggest blessing y- one could imagine. Loneliness? How can I be lonely? I'm with my best friends.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So why change?
- WIwill.i.am
'Cause I live 10 years from now. I've always seen 10 years from now. Always. I don't know what it was, but when I was 13, I'm like, "Wow, I'ma buy you a house." How old was I when I bought my mom a house? A little off. I was 26. I wanted to do it. All right, still did it. Then, 10 years from there, I was like, "Ma, how about everyone else in the..." We s- we still... Our aunts, our uncles, our- our nee- my grandma were still in the projects. We're still going back to the projects on holidays. "We need- we need to do a whole exodus." She was like, "If that's what you want to do." So we moved everybody out. Um, then when I got everyone else out, I'm like, "Well I gotta go back to the neighborhood," 'cause there's people that we grew up with, and they have kids now. Start a robotics program there. Start a computer science program there so that when they... And- and a college prep program, so that when they graduate college, they have skills that are needed. Not just send kids to college so that when they graduate, they have debt and a diploma. So, we did that. And there's purpose. So, I want to be purposeful. So, if I could see 10 years from now, okay... At some point in time, my tenure looking around the corner, one day, I'll be 70. One day, I'll be Tom Jones' age, I'll be 80.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
And what? I- I just stop? I don't pass it on? That- that's what happens here? No, that's not responsible. You know? That's not res- that's not r- that's not a responsible thing to do. So, you gotta pass on knowledge. (clears throat) You gotta pass on gifts. For me, it's a gift. The little kid on the bike. You know, I- I have good intentions. I wanna... Uh, it's all for the good. Um, and I wanna- I wanna pass it on.
- 41:48 – 46:14
How do you stay present when you’re thinking into the future
- SBSteven Bartlett
You said you're living 10 years in the future or five years in the future. There must be a cost to that. When people talk and, you know, spiritual people talk about what peace is and happiness is, they s- talk about presence. You s- you strike me as someone, from what you've said, that is... Might struggle with the concept of being present when you're five years in the future, and this kind of leads into a point where people talk about the tortured creative that is, like, very, you know, cognitively, um, active. How does- how does one square being a creative that's living five years in the future with peace, happiness, presence, and calm, and- and what's your story in that regard?
- WIwill.i.am
Like I said, we're assuming that a proton, a neutron, and electron all should have the same role.... to make an atom. In actuality, they all have different roles. And the moment an electron acts like a proton, then an atom's not an atom anymore. So, I got out of my predicament because I didn't live in my current reality. Had I lived in my current reality, I would still be in my reality that was constructed for me.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
So I had to live in this realm that was dreamt of and my whole premise was to manifest that dream with strategy. So I had to, I had to live as if it was real. I had to live like I already moved my mom out the projects. I had to live like, "This gang doesn't want me. I'm no use for this gang. Why even get initiated and be a, and live that gang life? Let me just keep wearing these suits because the suits that my mom made me as my attire for the world that I'm gonna be living in." You have to live, you, if you're living in some place that you know that you don't belong, you, you know you don't belong there. Why are you stuck in that? So in my mind, I have to... I've always been that way. Unfortunately, I can't change how my makeup is, so I'm constantly, if it got me out of that, it's gonna get me out of this, and where we are right now, my neig- people that live in communities that reflect where I come from are still in some version of that. So in 2008, I started my foundation, started with 65 students, and I, and my gut was like, "Yo, let me surround them with robotics and computer science skillsets." So I went out in the world, absorbed these, these skillsets, these tools. Met, um, Jack Dangermond from Esri, met Dean Kamen from, uh, DEKA and FIRST Robotics, met Laurene Powell Jobs from Collatrac. My vision was to take these three independent entities, duct tape them together to make a cluster to give a new s- type of project-based learning to kids, 65 kids. That 65 kids, from 2008 to now, now we serve fift- almost 15,000 students in Los Angeles. We've sent kids to Dartmouth, to Brown, to Stanford, to Georgetown, because in 2008, I was living right now. I knew that because the way technology was going, that kids in the inner cities are gonna be super, um, conflicted with the way the world's going and the amount of jobs that are gonna disappear. I thought it was just gonna be, like, uh, blue-collar jobs. I didn't think it was gonna be white-collar jobs. I didn't think kids in the suburbs were going to be, you know, impacted by, you know, this new, this new digital age. Like, we've seen the last one, but this generative stuff? Yo, bro. Thank God we were doing what we were doing in 2008. Thank God we have, you know, a fleet, um, a herd of amazing engineers out of the, out of, you know, the inner cities of LA. And now we wanna scale that. So 2030, yeah, I'm living there right now, because there's still work
- 46:14 – 56:20
The hardest time of you life
- WIwill.i.am
to do.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I was listening to one of your songs, um, before you arrived here and it was very curious for me.
- WIwill.i.am
Which one? My house? (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WIwill.i.am
Man, that shit's lyrical. (laughs) It was a song, I think the song was called Be Nice. Oh.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And when I, oh yeah, it was called Be Nice, and when I started think, looking into the song, looking about what you'd said around that song, you said, "I was on a dip in the low part of a roller coaster." And you wrote that song because it helped you to change your vibration, but also to help other people change their vibrations. The dip on the low part of a roller coaster, what other things in, in your life that have caused that dip in the lower part of the roller coaster? I think men, but particularly Black men, we don't always talk about our mental health or the dip in the low part of the roller coaster. So I was super, I thought it was wonderful that you, um, you'd made a song about that, but also, you were sp- you were speaking so openly about that.
- WIwill.i.am
Well, I was reflecting on ni- on my 1993, 18-year-old self. That, that, uh, that path was the hardest path that I've, in my life, 18.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- WIwill.i.am
18 was the hardest, 'cause it was, uh, 30 years ago. This time 30 years ago. Mm, it was March when I had like a... It was March of 1993 when I felt something that I've never felt before, this, like... distortion. I felt, uh, that's a perfect word for it, dis-ease. And dis-ease, vibrationally, is dis-ease, like a disease on a vibrational level. Like, the word disease is really dis-ease of molecular, cellular, where you're vibrating, um... Uh, there's no harmony or sense of your vibrational field.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
No matter how you look at it. And in this case, you have a vibration in thought, and I was vibrating off, and when you're vibrating off, you're dark. When you're vibrating off, you panic, angst. Your hypertens- your hyperactivity is-... um, off tilt. Um, and so from March 'til about August was a very, very, very turbulent time for me in- when I was 18. And there's nothing wrong with being emotional. And when you're creative, you're always sensitive, like you're hypersensitive. That's a part of creativity. Like, you feel, uh, you feel too much. Um, and I feel too much. I empathize hardcore. Um, I'm the guy in the olive area that talks to strangers. I'm the guy that's like... Some- I was walking down the street, came out of Tesco's. Somebody's like, "will.i.am." I'm like, "Hey, what's up?" "Oh, oh, I don't mean to bug you." I'm like, "That's cool." Straight up conversations for like 30 minutes with random strangers. I like that 'cause I don't- I don't ever want to ignore folks that I could shed light on or they could shed light to me. You never know what little nuggets that you give or receive. Um, so that song, that lyric was just remembering- reminding myself of, like, what that- what that period was like for me. It was a very, very like coming of age. I was- And I didn't have a ma- a- a man in my life, a d- a father in my life to guide me through that. My mom did that, which probably made me even ultra-feminine, which is no- I have no shame of being super feminine. You know, I- I remember in the '90s, we- we- we don't have the support in the LGBT community like now than we did then. So growing up in the '90s, it were like, "Are you gay?" Like a lot of people questioned if I was... 'cause I was feminine. I'm still feminine. I sit the way I sit. I act the way I act. My- my mannerisms are my mom's. But it was a- it was very, uh... And I'm strong with my- my- my femininity. I- I- I think it's a superpower. But, um, that- and when- when you know who you are, when you- when you love who you are, how you are, how you vibe, that's what it's about. I like girls, um, never was attracted to men. I'm attracted to females, but I'm feminine.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What caused that chapter in your life? D- do you know?
- WIwill.i.am
What?
- SBSteven Bartlett
That- that- that dark chapter in your life. Was there a clear causal ch-
- WIwill.i.am
D- d- distortion is a better word.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Distortion, that chapter in your life where you had distortion.
- WIwill.i.am
Wha- Weed.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Weed? Okay.
- WIwill.i.am
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Interesting, okay.
- WIwill.i.am
Yeah, it was the, uh, it's chemicals.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You said shame and guilt as well. You s- used those words earlier.
- WIwill.i.am
Yeah, I was shameful because I did something that I knew hurt my mom.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Right.
- WIwill.i.am
You know? Like, "You were smoking?" And I- her head hanging low like, "Did I do a... What is my son out there doing?" You know, "What trouble is he getting into? What is it gonna lead to?" I saw her panic. I felt her panic. I felt her worry. I felt her concern.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you still- do you still have- have you had moments of distortion since?
- WIwill.i.am
It's usually when, um, you make errors, you hurt people, indirectly, a- um, clumsily, irresponsible. When you- when- when you let people down that you love. When I let people down that I love, I distort.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is distortion different from depression in your definition? Is there a difference?
- WIwill.i.am
Oh, yeah. Big difference. Distortion leads to depression.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Ah, okay.
- 56:20 – 1:03:08
FYI, your new app
- SBSteven Bartlett
FYI. FYI is Will's brand new app, which has launched now, and the whole purpose of FYI is to help creatives organize, collaborate, and communicate in one place rather than having all of these different communication channels and digital assets spread across all of these different products that we might use today.
- WIwill.i.am
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I had this problem last night. I was on, like, Monday over here, to-do list over here. I'm on Google Cloud's over here, Google Sheet's here, and I... and when I opened up FYI this morning, I can see, uh, from where I... whe- where we are on the mo- road map, looking into the future, how having all of that in one space with AI as kind of the, the agent to power a lot of the, the knowledge work, I guess-
- WIwill.i.am
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... is a really special combination. Um, FYI is now available on the App Store. I got it this morning. Um, everybody should go and check it out, and I'm really excited, if you're starting here, what the road map looks forward for the future, 'cause I can see the mission.
- WIwill.i.am
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um...
- WIwill.i.am
So fyi.ai is like, we're at 1.0. 4.0, like do you understand how awesome of a platform FYI is going to be? It's also equipped with elliptical curve cryptography, uh, methodologies, because during COVID, NFTs and blockchain told us that, you know, "Protect your assets."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
"And here's a key."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
But why is in the s- same type of key architecture and, and product structure, how come it's not for my data on messengers? Why am I not given a key to where I own m- my digital assets when my digital assets are the data itself?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
Why is it just for NFTs and crypto? So on FYI, yes, there's messengers that are encrypted end-to-end, but where's the key?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
If you're not issued a key that the company itself doesn't have, we ensure that your data and your stuff is your stuff. What is yours is yours. How you speak is how you speak. And when it comes to AI and mimic machines, none of us own our face, and none of us own our voice. I own the publishing to my songs. You could copyright, and you could create NDAs to protect your IP, but when it comes to you, every human being walking in the age of AI, who owns our essence and our likeness? And why aren't we talking about that enough? The Drake AI is, yeah, it's, it's... it was abuzz, and it's still going to continue to buzz. But shouldn't Drake own his likeness and his essence? Why is that legal? Why is it legal that Biggie Smalls is rapping a Tupac verse that was actually about him? Like, why is that... I can't take a Nike swoosh. Nike owns a swoosh, but I don't own my face and my voice? Beyoncé don't own her face and her voice, but Adidas owns stripes. Something's not right for people. So, as FYI grows, that encryption key, 1.0 versus 5.0, the vision that we have, where we want to go, how we need the community to help us get there, I want to build the people's tool. I want to build a company that, where people own their data, 100% of it. I am not my identity, to my driver's license and my, my, uh, Social Security number and my passport. I am my data. I am my searches. I am my freaking spellcheck. I am my voice. I am my facial unlock with the machine vis- I am all that stuff. I am my location. I'm my address book. It could predict me. But why can't I have power of that? Why, why... W- I could say-
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WIwill.i.am
... "I want to weigh 194 pounds by November 24th, 2024. I currently weigh 210 pounds."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Which app would you like to use?
- WIwill.i.am
Like, you can't do that right now.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WIwill.i.am
There's no aspirational GPS. And for aspirational GPS, that means the system has to be mine.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
Not me have access to a system. I have a record deal because at one point of time, it was expensive to record.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
Now recording's ubiquitous. Everybody could do it. So why do I have a record deal? So what is luxury when it comes to... What's premium? What's the highest way of creating? At some point in time, making films and recording music was the highest level of creating. Painting for the freaking, for the, uh, for the, for the monarchy or for the Church was the highest level of creating. Now you can just do it on your phone. But the highest level of creating right now is building models.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
And to build models and compute, it's expensive.So tomorrow, people are gonna be training their own models. Right? That's a unheard of deal right now. Like, we, we know the, the folks that are spinning out models in these companies. But soon, compute's gonna come down and there's going to be new models that are going to be just as powerful as GPT. Some 15-year-old right now is dreaming right now, when they're 25, that person is gonna have his own model and his own company. And it's gonna be morally sound for people in the communities because greed... Not, not saying that the, the models right now are greedy. I'm, I'm not saying that. But watch what happens in 2023. We're gonna be driven by love because the concept that we had and that we're baking it off of with Terminator, that's not sustainable. That's not... That's fear. And if you're gonna base it off of movies, then go Star Wars.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
Not Terminator. Star Wars, there's multiple models, there's multiple robots. They all speak different fucking languages. But there's Jedis. And Jedi is a different... Yes, there was a Dark Force, yes, there were Siths-
- 1:03:08 – 1:12:12
AI
- SBSteven Bartlett
People are gripped by AI at the moment. Um, they're terrified. They are excited. Where do you sit? And if you're, if you were talking to those kids in the inner city about AI and what they need to know about it, um, what would you be saying?
- WIwill.i.am
If I go to the inner city, I'm telling kids, "Hey, our whole entire life has been set up for us to fail. Our investment for education has been... They've underminded our investment to where other neighborhoods are getting a bigger investment for their education than us. The way they've zoned our communities, we have liquor stores next to check cashing, next to bad food next to bad food. Our teachers are not being, you know, invested in to teach us the things that we need to learn. We have no financial literacy. So when we get our checks, we cash our checks and then we spend it on bad stuff. Our understanding of money is to spend it to pay bills. We're not even taught to grow it. We've been set up to fail. AI didn't do that, people did that. Now here's a tool for us to solve our problems ourself now. Grab it while you can and we are now our own calvary." Right? Because the people that are afraid are not the people here. We've already went through the worst and survived the worst conditions of life. Are these folks afraid? Oh, oh, those f- the ones that are responsible for our zoning, uh... Got it. Okay, cool. Now let's, let's build a better world. Let's educate ourselves with this tool. Let's understand that it is a tool. Let's understand that there's these biases there. Let's try to solve those biases." So then, what is the ultimate dream? My ultimate dream is like, wow, we all know this wave. We see it coming. It could be good-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
... or it could be bad. It's gonna be good when we're mindful of what our contributions are to prepare people for this wave. We have to prepare folks and gotta do information, inspiration, preparation, motivation, and, um, you know, mentorship so that they can activate their creativity to unearth tomorrow's industries because this wave is gonna topple yesterday's industries, today's industries. If you're a lawyer and you work at a law firm and you do redlining on contracts, that's not what you're doing in 2030. If you're an accountant and you're counting, counting beans and penny-pinching, that's not what you're doing in 2030. If you're a cashier at a, at a retail, you're probably not doing that in 2030. If you're a bus driver, Uber driver, taxi driver, that's not what you're doing in 2030 because you're seeing the construct of what tomorrow is now. You're dealing with machines that could go and pivot from subject to subject, go deep into subjects in ways that people can't. Writing songs, making pictures, Midjourney is freaking crazy. It's the most amazing tool that ever... Like, yo, Midjourney's nuts.
- SBSteven Bartlett
For people that don't know, Midjourney is a tool that uses, um, text to create generative images of whatever you type in, in seconds.
- WIwill.i.am
So if you're a marketer, if you're like a (laughs) -
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- WIwill.i.am
... a artist that works for a brand, if you're an agency that works for brands-This technology is gonna give super creatives agency. So, why do they need agencies? Just, just the- the vast transformation and for hyper creatives that now they just need a new tool to help them, like, oof, and just birth stuff? We've, it's a new renaissance.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The ultimate.
- WIwill.i.am
It's the ultimate dream if you're preparing a- a- a section of the world that, whose problems have always been ignored to now go out and solve those problems with this tool. Are you using this tool to make songs? Uh, you know it's gonna make better songs than you. It's Pac-Man right now. We ain't even got to Halo. It's, we're in freaking Super Mario Brothers, we ain't even got to Call of Duty yet. This thing's gonna make better songs than you soon, bro.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The songs out already are pretty dope. I was... I talked about that on this podcast before, that Drake song with the... (laughs)
- WIwill.i.am
No, but the Drake song still required somebody to sing it and then they layer-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, okay.
- WIwill.i.am
... uh, a plugin over it to make it sound like Drake.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, okay.
- WIwill.i.am
I heard a song that didn't... I heard... Yo, this new tech is outta here. But more importantly, I saw it in 2010. In my mind's eye I was like, "Yo, no, no, no. If I'm in this computer, that means this computer... Wait, what? If I'm in the computer making music, I'm not, I'm not a musician like Prince or freaking Stevie Wonder. I make music 'cause I can make the computer make music." And with machine learning, that means eventually the computer is gonna remember how I made it to make music and eventually just make it itself.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Maybe even publish it itself. Maybe even not even tell you (laughs) it's doing it.
- WIwill.i.am
No, no, no, no. Like, like-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Say if you're making something on Adobe, you're also pro- you're making Adobe smarter at creating records. So, you- you know, why does, why does Adobe eventually need the person hitting the buttons or, with the ideas when it can learn from a million of those? And then it can also track the outcome. Does that become a- a smash hit? And it's going okay. So when they did this to me, you know what I mean? The film Oppenheimer's into cinemas shortly and it, the, Oppenheimer was the guy who was, in the World War was told to go out to make the nuclear bomb and that is almost what I'm scared about in this current AI race where China or Russia or another country versus the US, they're all in a race to create the most powerful artificial intelligence system, but also to use it for the defensive purposes, but also attacking purposes, um, offensive purposes. And when an intelligence is 100 times smarter than the smartest human, that world is the world where I go, are we, do we realize what we're getting ourselves into? Is this another Oppenheimer moment where we create something that has the capabilities to destroy humanity? Um, that's what's, I haven't figured out yet.
- WIwill.i.am
But for everything that we create, a hammer, we don't make hammers?
- SBSteven Bartlett
A hammer can kill how many, you know?
- WIwill.i.am
A screwdriver, a vehicle, an airplane, electricity, um, lights, everything that we advance-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
... the first caveman that found a freaking flame on a branch, imagine all the folks at some point in time when they first had a branch with flame on it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
They're like, "Yo, you can burn the village down."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- WIwill.i.am
And some villages-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Burnt down.
- WIwill.i.am
... burnt down.
- 1:12:12 – 1:20:22
The last guests question
- WIwill.i.am
- SBSteven Bartlett
We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're leaving it for and the- the person that's left this question for you, I think you know them. Um, the question is, what would be your superpower if you were, if you could be a superhero and why? It feels quite ƒ.
- WIwill.i.am
Somebody asked me that?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. Should I say who it is? Rita Ora.
- WIwill.i.am
Oh, Rita Ora, that's, uh, she's my fave. I love Rita.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But she didn't know it was for you.
- WIwill.i.am
Get the frick out.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So she just writes it in the book. I don't tell her who's coming next.
- WIwill.i.am
Oh, wow.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So usually I don't tell people who's written it, but I figured you might know her, so...
- WIwill.i.am
Yeah, I've worked with her many years and recorded songs that we never released. But yeah, I love Rita.
- SBSteven Bartlett
She was sat there yesterday. She-
- WIwill.i.am
She's awesome. It's gonna sound super like, uh, cheesy or corny. I would be Particle Man. I would, I would... My- my- my superpower would be I could shapeshift.I can influence particles to vibrate harmoniously 'cause that's the concept of love. It's when everything's vibrating harmoniously and there's, uh, that'd be the ultimate superpower. When-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Are you vi- are you vibrating harmoniously?
- WIwill.i.am
Right now?
- SBSteven Bartlett
In life.
- WIwill.i.am
In life? At the moment? No. Um, because I feel too much and when you feel, it af- it affects your vibration.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WIwill.i.am
Um, and then it takes a while to make sense of what you are absorbing and you rinse out and that, and you repeat. But in that process of absorb, rinse, repeat, um, you learn more about environments that you're in, people that you're around and your curiosity, my curiosity, um, and search for knowledge, like, why did I go to CERN? I'm, I'm gonna go next in two weeks and then they send me emails all the time, "Hey, Will. We hear you're gonna be in Geneva. You wanna come down to CERN? Um, just come see our, you know, advancements and learn more." I- I'd just like to know as much as possible. I don't... And when you, in, in my pursuit of knowing, um-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Causes some distortion?
- WIwill.i.am
Uh, there's nothing wrong with a little bit Jimi Hendrix. There's nothing (laughs) wrong with a little bit of distortion. But you can't just be consumed by it. It's all right. With amplification comes some distortion as you amplify and to get the word out or to get the vibe out, you know, you just gotta be aware of, of how you're amplifying. Um, not turn up too loud or too fast, and that's, you know, double entendres on turnip. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WIwill.i.am
Um, but, uh, yeah, so no, I'm not, um... That would be my superpower, is th- but the name Particle Man is whack.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs) Yeah.
- WIwill.i.am
Particle Man, like you know what I'm saying?
- SBSteven Bartlett
I wasn't, I wasn't gonna say it, yeah.
- WIwill.i.am
Da da da da.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's not gonna catch on. Kids ain't gonna watch. (laughs)
- WIwill.i.am
Subatomic. You know what I'm saying? But, um, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Vibration Man or s- I don't know, Vibes Man. I don't know.
Episode duration: 1:20:23
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