Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am shares solo "Songs"

By Gary Graff

DETROIT (Billboard) - When Interscope Geffen A&M chairman Jimmy Iovine suggested the idea of a solo album earlier this year, Black Eyed Peas leader will.i.am was caught off-guard.

"I'm thinking, 'Why would I do a solo project?"' he recalled. "I could just do an album with the Black Eyed Peas. It's a band full of solo artists. I knew whatever I did had to be more than just a solo album."

That it is. "Songs About Girls," due September 25, is a multimedia offering that features not only music -- 15 tracks, including first single "I Got It From My Mama" and "S.O.S.," which he wrote for the Live Earth concerts -- but also an hourlong movie incorporating videos for eight of the album's songs. Additionally, "Songs About Girls" will house a new Internet platform, Dipdive, that provides access to exclusive additional content.

And will.i.am has teamed with Musicane to power his own online music store at will-i-am.com, which will offer digital-rights-management-free MP3s.

"Will is this engine that just doesn't stop," said Iovine, who's partnering with will.i.am on Dipdive. "Will has a lot of music in him, a type of music he can and can't do with the Peas, and this gives people another look at who Will is."

As he began working on the project, will.i.am (whose real name is William Adams) had a solid idea of what he did -- and didn't -- want to be as a solo artist.

"I wanted to be a producer, a songwriter and a vocalist and a rapper -- (to) wear all the hats," he said. And even though he has an extensive, Grammy Award-nominated production resume that includes Mary J. Blige, Justin Timberlake and Peas singer Fergie, he didn't want "Songs About Girls" to be a standard producer's kind of album.

"I didn't want to go to all these people and say, 'You want to do a song with me?"' he said. "I didn't want to do a solo record that's not really a solo record, just me with a whole bunch of people on it. I wanted it to be a real solo attempt, a project with a continuous theme that was connected all the way through."

The storyline -- which tracks an up-and-coming hip-hop producer's relationship with a girlfriend -- was inspired by real events, specifically a seven-year relationship that began about the same time as the Black Eyed Peas in 1995.

For the movie portion of "Songs About Girls," the artist took a crew to Brazil and created a scriptless piece "about trying to make a movie, and the movie never gets made. It was a lot of fun."

Reuters/Billboard