Hey guys! The other day, cultural connoisseur and full stop philanderer Will.i.am was announced as a special guest at Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake’s Legends of The Summer Wireless Festival finale. I didn’t think that there was anything special about Will.i.am playing a Yahoo! sponsored festival but, hey, it’s not every day that we get to experience a real life musical composer mime the lyrics to songs that he’s stolen from other people, so, let's get into this.
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I've listened to Elephunk on repeat, reassessed my life as I sat through multiple episodes of The Voice and reluctantly had my lunch break sound tracked by the Kingston Oceana mantra of “I’ve Gotta Feeling”. I don't think I can take it much more. When will the rest of the world realise that Will.I.Am is a terrible person?I mean, I guess that a lot of people like terrible things that aren’t just confined to racism and religion, Vernon Kay's parents probably love him, for example, but Will.i.am is stupidly popular. The video for “I Gotta Feeling” has over 137 million views. He's headlined the superbowl. He did a song with Mick actual Jagger. What the hell everyone, this guy sucks.Why do so many people like him? I guess he makes music that is vaguely listenable if you’re drunkenly queuing for a Meatball Marinara or having a shit in Asda. But it’s hardly a life-affirming, let’s-dance-to-this-at-our-wedding sonance. He's supporting Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z at Wireless, but he's hardly worthy of being a "special guest" to that perfectionist pop stink of a power combo.You know what, he’s just a guy with a shit haircut that we’ve been letting get away with a bunch of ridiculous things for way too long now. Like…WEARING THE WORST CLOTHES EVERWhy does he always look like he’s waltzed backwards out of an accident with Karl Lagerfield’s boudoir. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with being fashion conscious. But imagine if one of your friend’s turned up at your house in this.
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Or this.
You'd tell them to go home, run a hot life-assessment bath and throw in some lavender scented oil until they’d retained a sense of normality. This outfit would have made sense if Will.i.am was touting some kind of Ziggy Stardust characterisation, but he’s not. He’s making chart music for teens to vacuously slam back strawpedos to. A primary audience, that, if Ed Sheeran has taught us anything, don’t give a Waitrose charity token about personality or good music.HE STEALS OTHER PEOPLE’S SONGSHere’s a song by Arty and Mat Zo called “Rebound”And here’s Will.i.am’s new song with Chris Brown originally titled “Let’s Go”They both sound like songs that I never want to listen to in my life ever again. But, they also both sound pretty similar to the point that they’re basically the same song. It’s not the first time Will.i.am has seemingly ripped off someone else’s track, though, because over his career he’s been accused of stealing nine different songs. He’s even been sued for a few. So, you’d think, when asked if he’d stolen Arty and Mat Zo’s track, he’d flatly refuse and start talking about something that I imagine Will.i.am talks about, like Koi carp pond feed or moonboots or something.HE ADMITS TO STEALING OTHER PEOPLE’S SONGSFrom a radio interview with KIIS-FM –“Arty is a dope producer so I wrote this song to 'Rebound' last year.”"To"? Yeah funny story, I wrote my university dissertation "to" something I found about modernism on Jstor.
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IF YOU TYPE HIS NAME INTO THE GOOGLE CHROME BAR IT REDIRECTS TO HIS WEBSITEOkay. I’m going to give you five seconds to go ahead and try it.See? This is the type of stunt that marketing students spend three years, a mental breakdown and thousands of pounds trying to learn. It’s a PRs wet dream that the people behind Thr!!!er, the latest record from (you guessed it!) !!! can only wish that they blew their yearly budget on. But, for everyone else, it’s a fucking annoying inconvenience when trying to laugh at someone on the Internet, like those annoying adverts that play automatically with a sense of self-dignity, or a LinkedIn request.HIS HAIR
Before Will.i.am entered the pop stratosphere, I was almost certain that mathematics and coiffures didn’t mix any further than the change that you give your hairdresser in return for a bodged haircut and an awkward conversation about whatever paper-pushing profession you’re in that they couldn’t care less about. But, like the Garnier Fructis equivalent of Bob Dylan going electric, Will.i.am would like to think that he’s changed everything. In some ways, he has. He’s had this cut for about five years now, and in doing so, has changed our perceptions of a man from having little credibility, to no credibility.HIS CAR IS REALLY LAME
This is Will.i.am’s car. I know what you’re thinking; it’s really cool, right? If I had loads of money, I’d probably buy one too. Because why spend money on a Peugeot 206 like everyone else when you can spend $900,000 on a custom made vacuous vehicle for your own being?
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It’s really helpful, because his car is basically a visual warning that a douchebag is driving through the nearby area. It’s a nice sentiment from Will and it makes me feel like he cares about all of us. But, still, it’s super lame and looks like something that Sully and Mike would be driving in Monsters Inc. Oh, and if you want one of these, he’s recently announced that he’s starting up his own car company called IAMAUTO.HE PLAYED GODCan there be anything more masturbatory than accepting a role as God? Probably. But this performance is so abysmally pointless that it almost makes me want to become a theist just so I have something to believe in beyond musicians trying to become Hollywood stars.HIS CAMERA IS POINTLESSIn our struggling job market, Will should be doing his bit for austerity and giving up one of his paid – yet pointless - jobs. He’s been quoted as saying – “The world doesn’t need another musician. They need another Bill Gates.” – which, although not directly referring to Will.Him.Self gives some suggestion of the work plane that he’s on. He’s recently announced plans to follow in Microsoft’s footsteps by creating a camera that is better than the Apple iPhone camera. Termed the i.am+ the £199+ camera enhances the quality of the iPhone camera from 8-megapixels to 14, meaning that he’s going to make a lot of money from making your overpriced Pret lunch look a tiny bit more photogenic. Let’s make sure that he doesn’t sell a single unit.
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HIS MUSIC MAKES ME FEEL EMPTYI’m sorry to anyone that likes Will.i.am but whenever I listen to his music all I can think about is Nick Grimshaw, who, despite chowing down on a ham and mustard bloomer from Eat, feels starved inside, dead from succumbing to a day job that involves promoting music that probably perpetuates the Winter suicide rate on Suburban rail services.If the point of music is to evoke emotion, then how does Will.i.am survive? Maybe I traded in my jello-shots lifestyle for a microwave dinner and an evening in too early, but his music doesn’t even sound fun to me. Despite being full of sound, it’s empty, like a Warhol silkscreen hung on the wall of vacant salariats apartment who has no care for portraiture, but displays it because it shows his worth.Still, I live in the solace that at least one person still doesn’t know who he is.Follow Ryan on Twitter: @RyanBassilRead more from Ryan here:The Conspiracy Theorists Guide To Tyler, The Creator's WOLF TrilogyDid The Internet Kill Musical Stereotypes?Akon's Wikipedia Page Is Amazing
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Or this.
You'd tell them to go home, run a hot life-assessment bath and throw in some lavender scented oil until they’d retained a sense of normality. This outfit would have made sense if Will.i.am was touting some kind of Ziggy Stardust characterisation, but he’s not. He’s making chart music for teens to vacuously slam back strawpedos to. A primary audience, that, if Ed Sheeran has taught us anything, don’t give a Waitrose charity token about personality or good music.HE STEALS OTHER PEOPLE’S SONGSHere’s a song by Arty and Mat Zo called “Rebound”And here’s Will.i.am’s new song with Chris Brown originally titled “Let’s Go”They both sound like songs that I never want to listen to in my life ever again. But, they also both sound pretty similar to the point that they’re basically the same song. It’s not the first time Will.i.am has seemingly ripped off someone else’s track, though, because over his career he’s been accused of stealing nine different songs. He’s even been sued for a few. So, you’d think, when asked if he’d stolen Arty and Mat Zo’s track, he’d flatly refuse and start talking about something that I imagine Will.i.am talks about, like Koi carp pond feed or moonboots or something.HE ADMITS TO STEALING OTHER PEOPLE’S SONGSFrom a radio interview with KIIS-FM –“Arty is a dope producer so I wrote this song to 'Rebound' last year.”"To"? Yeah funny story, I wrote my university dissertation "to" something I found about modernism on Jstor.IF YOU TYPE HIS NAME INTO THE GOOGLE CHROME BAR IT REDIRECTS TO HIS WEBSITEOkay. I’m going to give you five seconds to go ahead and try it.See? This is the type of stunt that marketing students spend three years, a mental breakdown and thousands of pounds trying to learn. It’s a PRs wet dream that the people behind Thr!!!er, the latest record from (you guessed it!) !!! can only wish that they blew their yearly budget on. But, for everyone else, it’s a fucking annoying inconvenience when trying to laugh at someone on the Internet, like those annoying adverts that play automatically with a sense of self-dignity, or a LinkedIn request.HIS HAIR
This is Will.i.am’s car. I know what you’re thinking; it’s really cool, right? If I had loads of money, I’d probably buy one too. Because why spend money on a Peugeot 206 like everyone else when you can spend $900,000 on a custom made vacuous vehicle for your own being?It’s really helpful, because his car is basically a visual warning that a douchebag is driving through the nearby area. It’s a nice sentiment from Will and it makes me feel like he cares about all of us. But, still, it’s super lame and looks like something that Sully and Mike would be driving in Monsters Inc. Oh, and if you want one of these, he’s recently announced that he’s starting up his own car company called IAMAUTO.HE PLAYED GODCan there be anything more masturbatory than accepting a role as God? Probably. But this performance is so abysmally pointless that it almost makes me want to become a theist just so I have something to believe in beyond musicians trying to become Hollywood stars.HIS CAMERA IS POINTLESSIn our struggling job market, Will should be doing his bit for austerity and giving up one of his paid – yet pointless - jobs. He’s been quoted as saying – “The world doesn’t need another musician. They need another Bill Gates.” – which, although not directly referring to Will.Him.Self gives some suggestion of the work plane that he’s on. He’s recently announced plans to follow in Microsoft’s footsteps by creating a camera that is better than the Apple iPhone camera. Termed the i.am+ the £199+ camera enhances the quality of the iPhone camera from 8-megapixels to 14, meaning that he’s going to make a lot of money from making your overpriced Pret lunch look a tiny bit more photogenic. Let’s make sure that he doesn’t sell a single unit.HIS MUSIC MAKES ME FEEL EMPTYI’m sorry to anyone that likes Will.i.am but whenever I listen to his music all I can think about is Nick Grimshaw, who, despite chowing down on a ham and mustard bloomer from Eat, feels starved inside, dead from succumbing to a day job that involves promoting music that probably perpetuates the Winter suicide rate on Suburban rail services.If the point of music is to evoke emotion, then how does Will.i.am survive? Maybe I traded in my jello-shots lifestyle for a microwave dinner and an evening in too early, but his music doesn’t even sound fun to me. Despite being full of sound, it’s empty, like a Warhol silkscreen hung on the wall of vacant salariats apartment who has no care for portraiture, but displays it because it shows his worth.Still, I live in the solace that at least one person still doesn’t know who he is.Follow Ryan on Twitter: @RyanBassilRead more from Ryan here:The Conspiracy Theorists Guide To Tyler, The Creator's WOLF TrilogyDid The Internet Kill Musical Stereotypes?Akon's Wikipedia Page Is Amazing