will.i.am, Nas & The Game: Just To Get A Rep

Hip-hop ignored him. BET snubbed him. Even with the Black Eyed Peas’ multi-platinum money and power, will.i.am couldn’t get any respect. Now, with forward-thinking MCs like The Game and Nas singing his praises and banging his beats, does this producer have the rap world in the palm of his hand?
words Kawan Ari | photography Travis Shinn
It may come as a shock to some, but will.i.am—yes, from the Black Eyed Peas—actually prefers happy music. “I get real emotional in the studio,” says the multi-platinum hitmaker. “I don’t like making dark beats ’cause I get depressed.” The sunny side of hip-hop and R&B has made the 31-year-old a very rich man, affording him the opportunity to work with legends like Santana and the late James Brown, all while racking up awards, endorsement deals and movie cameos. Then one day last summer, while working at the Record Plant studio in Hollywood, will.i.am took on a decidedly un-happy challenge: gangsta rap.

“[My boys] were like, ‘Game is coming by the studio,’” he remembers. “I had been working with John Legend. All I got is soul stuff. I gotta do something real fast.” After looping up the rattling drums from Baby Huey’s popular 1971 break “Hard Times,” will thought about what sound would appeal to the man with “NWA” tattooed on his chest. “Let me make a beat that sounds like it could be on Amerikkka’s Most Wanted,” he remembers thinking, referring to Ice Cube and the Bomb Squad’s groundbreaking 1990 collaboration.

Matching a practicing pop star with a street-wise MC like The Game might seem like a recipe for disaster, but the man born William Adams is no ordinary hitmaker. His first record deal—with BEP predecessor Atban Klann—was on Eazy-E’s Ruthless Records in the early ’90s. Before getting in the studio, Game knew all about will’s history with Eazy, but he was still skeptical. “I study hip-hop—I knew of him when he was ‘Will 1X’ back in the day,” Jayceon “The Game” Taylor remembers. “With the Black Eyed Peas, I was thinking that will had changed his sound and he wasn’t really delivering to hip-hop cats like me. I respect what he do, but I didn’t know if we were going to gel. I didn’t know if he could channel that Ruthless energy again.”

By the time the 27-year-old Compton MC entered the Record Plant that day, will’s vintage gangsta rap track was nearing completion. “I could kinda hear the bassline coming through the soundproof doors,” Game remembers excitedly. “I opened the door and all I heard was ‘Nigga, nigga, nigga—Compton!’ Soon as I heard that shit, I was sold. I didn’t even shake anybody hand.” Thirty minutes later, the song—appropriately named “Compton,” a menacing highlight on The Game’s sophomore album Doctor’s Advocate—was complete. Another satisfied customer.

[Read the rest of this feature in the March/April issue of Scratch!]
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