will.i.am On Showing off “East LA” Roots With Taboo In New Single, "Rock That Body" & More | Music You Should Know | Billboard News - video Dailymotion

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will.i.am is back and ready to show his “East LA” roots in his new single with Tabboo. He sits down to share his favorite spots in East LA, why he wrote the song and decided to bring Tabboo on, “Rock That Body” viral resurgence, and Black Eyed Peas moments.   What do you think of “East LA?” Let us know in the comments!

Transcript

00:00I'm from Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles.

00:02605, that's East LA, on the 17th, that's East LA.

00:07I was going through my hard drive, wait.

00:09So I woke up, and I thought that there was barbecue.

00:12Well, I woke up to go get me a cold pop,

00:14then I thought somebody was barbecuing.

00:17I said, oh Lord Jesus, it's a fire.

00:19I done put on no shoes or nothing,

00:20I just ran out of my house.

00:22Is that what you asked me?

00:23If Mike heard, he'd be like, oh my gosh, I love that.

00:25You just take this fire in your eyes,

00:27people have fire in their eyes all the time.

00:29I love that.

00:30But hardworking people, families,

00:31people that want to become citizens

00:33and through their hard work, contributions to the workforce,

00:37to have those people's lives threatened to be sent back,

00:40that ain't cool.

00:48What made me want to do a solo project right now?

00:50I was going through my hard drive,

00:52and I just saw all this music, this unreleased stuff.

00:55I started thinking of AI.

00:58I'm like, I need to get this stuff out

01:01before people get just accustomed to AI

01:04and they forget about human, fully human made.

01:07I just wanted to put out music,

01:08so I got like three albums coming, three albums.

01:13That's just me by myself.

01:14Then I got Black Eyed Peas stuff.

01:16But yeah, so this is the first installment

01:18of the things that I got coming.

01:20I was raised up with some Aztec warriors,

01:22homies from the barrio.

01:24Those are my supporters.

01:25I'm from Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles,

01:27a predominantly Mexican neighborhood.

01:28That's where I was born and raised.

01:29That's where my mom was raised.

01:31I just wanted to flip that particular part of the song

01:34that says East LA,

01:35and I wanted to put it on repeat

01:37and then build around East LA.

01:40I've been loving East LA.

01:44And show some love to the community that I come from,

01:47that I was born and raised in,

01:48especially now with all that's happening

01:50with immigration issues

01:52and people that I grew up with,

01:54their parents, their kids,

01:55threatened, worried, anxiety.

01:58I went back to my neighborhood

01:59after I had some success with the Black Eyed Peas

02:01and I started my school.

02:02And after school program, teaching kids computer science,

02:05robotics, college prep, we've had thousands of kids graduate.

02:09We've sent kids to Dartmouth, to Brown, to Stanford,

02:11to USC, UCLA.

02:13Their dedication and consistency and audaciousness, ambition,

02:19is proof that folks that come from another country

02:22can come, work hard, and apply themselves.

02:25There wouldn't be a Jeff Bezos

02:27if it wasn't for, you know, Michael Bezos.

02:29A Cuban migrant who made an amazing life for himself,

02:33raise someone that wasn't his, you know, blood,

02:36that became a Jeff Bezos.

02:42My favorite food, when I wasn't vegan, it was menudo.

02:46Now that I am vegan, a nice vegan breakfast burrito,

02:50vegan chilaquiles.

02:51East Side Love, the name says it for itself, you know.

02:55That one and Don Quixote's.

02:58My favorite part of the neighborhood to hang out in

03:00was Estrada Quartz, the project's where I'm from.

03:02They had everything there.

03:03If I'm here on a Sunday, that's where I'm riding my bike.

03:06I go back to the neighborhood.

03:08There's lots of folks.

03:09There's lots of artists.

03:10Let me see.

03:10What's that like emo group from East LA?

03:13It's a girl and a dude.

03:15She sings like some very moody, emotional song.

03:18It's from the 80s.

03:20This one.

03:20Yo, where's Mazzy Star from?

03:27Chia, Mazzy Star.

03:29They got them roots in Santa Monica, California.

03:33I thought they was from East LA.

03:34Look, Chia, it's wild how music can play tricks on the mind,

03:37right?

03:38Sometimes they themselves seem to come from somewhere deeper,

03:40a place that's familiar, you know?

03:42Mazzy Star got that way about them,

03:44making you feel a certain closeness.

03:46But hey, East LA's got its own legendary pulse,

03:49and ain't nobody taking that away.

03:50I told you, she's from East LA.

03:53She's from East LA.

03:55The group is from Santa Monica.

03:56The group is from Santa Monica.

04:02There's a song that I have on my hard drive called

04:05Fire In Your Eyes that samples Michael Jackson.

04:07The same way I sampled Michael Jackson in The Girl Is Mine.

04:11You know what Michael Jackson says?

04:12The fire's in his eyes and it make it really clear, so beat it.

04:16Right?

04:17What I did was I just took the fire's in your eyes,

04:20the eyes, eyes, eyes, you got fire in your eyes.

04:23But then they didn't want me to clear that.

04:25Whatever.

04:26If Mike heard it, he'd be like, oh my gosh, I love that.

04:28You just taking this fire in your eyes.

04:30People have fire in their eyes all the time.

04:32But yeah, but guess what?

04:33I can't hear it and give me the thumbs up.

04:35But it's cool.

04:35I get it.

04:36Why is Taboo on East LA?

04:44You know, that was a conundrum for me.

04:47Because I'm like, okay, if Taboo's on it, ain't that a Black Eyed Pea song, man?

04:51Well, first it was a song, a solo song first.

04:53And I'm doing my solo project now.

04:55And it's not a Black Eyed Pea project.

04:56But I could do Will.i.am featuring Taboo.

04:58Because Taboo is, he was raised in Dogtown projects, and we're both proud Eastsiders.

05:04True Angelenos are either north of the 101, south of the 10, east of the five.

05:09Those are Angelenos.

05:10And there's a lot of Black Eyed Pea fans out there.

05:12They're gonna be like, wait, what?

05:13What's going on here?

05:14Don't trip.

05:15We're gonna have a, you know, me and Apple the App collaboration, too, and the Apple

05:19the App and Taboo.

05:20We wanted to do something that, in the years of Black Eyed Peas, ways of configuring collaborations

05:25and expression that we haven't done yet.

05:27And this is one of those.

05:28Rock that body.

05:29Come on, come on, rock that body.

05:31Rock your body.

05:33Rock that body is booming on TikTok.

05:35And that's amazing.

05:36When people, you know, select your music, your past music, and express yourselves through

05:42it.

05:43That's what it's all about.

05:44And it's like, oh, it's 14 years ago.

05:46That's like 14 years ago.

05:47I gotta have a 14 year old.

05:49So rock that body is a thing on TikTok right now while AI is booming.

05:56And the beginning of rock that body predicts the age of AI that we are in with text to music.

06:01You know, go to the beginning of the video and I'm like, yo, look, check this out.

06:05This right here is going to take the peas to the future.

06:06You type the lyrics in here and this machine is going to sing it.

06:09It's the future right here.

06:10That was in 2009.

06:11There was no large language model.

06:12There was no diffusion model.

06:13The concept of like a machine singing, producing.

06:15That was not the norm thought process.

06:18And now that rock that body is trending, the time where AI is booming and that video predicts

06:26it, it's kind of wild.

06:26The four of us back together, I don't know if that would ever happen.

06:34But I don't know if the three of us were together.

06:36That's what it was when we started the group.

06:38It all depends.

06:39I think Griggy has planted in her foundation being an awesome mom to Axel.

06:43And so we honor that and we respect that, we salute her, we love her and support her dream.

06:49And then me and the lads, me and the lads, we've had this dream since we were youngins.

06:53Since we were 16, 17 and now we're still dreaming.

06:57I have a bunch of ways to express, inform, entertain, engage in deep conversations, fun conversations,

07:10you know, future cast.

07:11It's going to be an awesome creative project this week.

07:15In the crisp, sterile environment of the operating room, the lead surgeon picks up the scalpel.

07:21The surgeon uses surgical scissors to carefully cut along strategic points.

07:25Wow.

07:26This is amazing.

07:27We reenacted the freaking surgery.

07:29Anyhow, this AI stuff is nuts.

will.i.am On Showing off “East LA” Roots With Taboo In New Single, "Rock That Body" & More | Music You Should Know | Billboard News

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