Superproducer will.i.am on Songs About Girls and the hidden complexities of "My Humps"

Black Eyed Pea will.i.am has produced some of the catchiest, most shamelessly commercial, unapologetically stupid hit songs of the 21st century. On the eve of the release of his solo album, Songs About Girls, he talked to Radar about his carbon footprint, the artistry of "My Humps," and why going corporate isn't always such a bad thing.

RADAR: There was a time when the Black Eyed Peas were mentioned in the same breath as conscious hip-hop acts like Ozomatli and the Roots. What happened?
will.i.am: People always want to say you've lost your mission, but you can't let that distract from what you love to do. I love to make music. If I were a painter, I would paint beautiful bodies—I would paint nipples, and I would paint Bibles. Am I going to say, "I'm not going to paint this woman's neck because people will think I just want to lick on necks?" Please! That's not what art is about. Some people could say "My Humps" isn't art, and I'd say, cool. But I think it is. Also, our biggest hit ever was "Where Is the Love," which is a very political song.

Tell me about your new single, "I Got It from My Mama."
It's a fun track.
When I wrote "My Humps," I said, "This is the stupidest thing ever," but in a good way.It's about a guy going out to pick up girls and thinking it's true that if your mama's hot, you're hot. And if your mom's busted, then nine times out of 10, you're about to be busted, too. I came up with it because my ex-girlfriend's mom was hot. Everyone knew it.

So it's more in the vein of "My Humps" than "Where Is the Love"?
You could say that. When I wrote "My Humps," I said, "This is the stupidest thing ever," but in a good way. I always wondered what it must be like to be a girl, always gettin' pulled on. Maybe she's the smartest genius on the planet, but she's rackin' double Ds with a 26-inch waist and a big ol' ass and no one's ever gonna see her like that because that's the way the world is today.

Sounds like your songs are a lot more nuanced than I thought.
It's harder than you think to write the sort of song that keeps your attention and entices you to sing it verbatim later. It's easy, if you're a poet, to write complex verses like, "I'm coming after you like VWXYZ." Just think about that. It's like, "Yo, V does come after U! That's fucking crazy!" My mind thinks like that all the time, coming up with crazy clever metaphors and rhymery thingies.

I think I heard some of those rhymery thingies in the poem you read at Live Earth.
That poem, "S.O.S.," is the last song on my new record. The earth is, ultimately, a woman. It fit with the theme.

Are you trying to reduce your carbon footprint?
When Al Gore asked me to perform, I was like, "Wow, that sounds great, people coming together to stand for something." But then I was like, "Wait a second, it's sort of hypocritical to throw a concert. Everyone there is going to be drinking water out of plastic bottles." It can't be the consumer that changes the world; it has to be governments that make laws for corporations and demand they produce alternatives. We won't stop buying things, so give us something else to fucking buy!

Speaking of buying things, what do you say to people who give you flack for trying to turn BEP into a "global brand"?
We planned on being global from the very beginning. And then came the whole brand sponsorship shit. I'm all for it. People don't mind doing a song that goes on the radio right after a commercial. That money comes from Jergens and Coke. If your song gets huge, soon you're playing the Staples Center, which is branded, too. So brands help bands from the beginning. I was like, "Dude, I've always liked Dr Pepper, and they're going to let me play my music." So fuck it.

This article is from the October issue of Radar magazine. Click here to get a risk-free issue.

Q&A: MEET MICHAEL CERA, SUPERBAD'S SECRET WEAPON >>

READ MORE
• E-Beefs: Hip-hop feuds go digital
• Today's Top Stories