Will.i.am, born Williams Adams, is a multifaceted visionary, excelling as a musician, producer, technologist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. As a renowned musician-turned-entrepreneur and seven-time Grammy Award winner, he showcases exceptional creativity. Initially a solo artist, Will.i.am went on to co-found the esteemed musical group Black Eyed Peas.
As co-founder of Black Eyed Peas, he became a worldwide sensation, working with chart-topping artists like Britney Spears while hanging out with tech pioneers like Google cofounder Larry Page.
Along the way, he reinvented himself as a tech entrepreneur, although tech had always been part of his life. Raised by a strong mom in the crime-ridden projects of Los Angeles, he was drawn to tech at a very young age. As such, he specialized in science, engineering, and mathematics while in high school.
However, he left school after struggling with ADD and signing with his first music label at age 17, Forbes reported. His concentration is now on promoting robotics, AI, and technology.
In 2019, Will.i.am was invited by billionaire Reid Hoffman to invest in Inflection AI, a startup aiming to rival OpenAI. He accepted the offer and, through a private investor group, took stakes in OpenAI, Anthropic, Runway, and Hugging Face—each now with multibillion-dollar valuations, Forbes reported.
His latest venture, FYI, is an AI-powered productivity app that enables creatives to collaborate and communicate on projects with digital asset management, Forbes wrote. FYI, also known as Focus Your Idea, is billed as “the first productivity tool designed to serve creatives first”.
During an Afrotech conference recently, the rapper-turned-tech entrepreneur disclosed how the sacrifices of his mother have led him to current success.
“I remember my mom was like, ‘Wait, put your clothes on. You go up here to get our food stamps. Sit in this line to get this cheese,’” he said.
“When you’re in the projects, and that’s your reality, standing in line to get government services, and you’re there, and you’ve got dreams, and you’re like, ‘One day, I want to move my mama out of these projects, and you come outside, and your best friend that you grew up with is no longer with you because he got shot, and you want to dream different—that’ where I get ambition from.”
He recalled how his mother single-handedly raised him and his siblings and still found a way to ensure that their needs were met. Moreover, she influenced Will.i.am’s decision to pursue music because she fostered creativity among her children.
The musician noted that his mother supported his career with her last $200 to help him purchase a car to take him back and forth to the studio.
“I remember I was like, ‘Mom, the next-door neighbor is selling a car for 200 bucks.’ I could use this to go to the studio, and she’s like, ‘Boy, I ain’t got $200.’ I was like, ‘Come on, Mom. I don’t want to take the bus. It’s hot on the streets. I just want to get from here to there,” Will.i.am recalled.
“And then she’s like, ‘Boy, go get my purse. And I and my mom was talking about this. We was in Italy this summer, I’m sorry, we were in Spain this summer, in Greece, and I was like, ‘Ma, remember I asked you for that $200 [and she was like] ‘Yeah, that was my last $200.’”
“[I was like] How did you feed us that month before we had to go get that welfare check the month later. She was like, ‘I knew how much it meant for you to have that car, and I didn’t want to tell you no ’cause I was tired of telling you no when we didn’t have money. And if this was gonna help you on your dream, I just didn’t want to crush your dream.’”
The rapper has also disclosed that he lives in a hotel. The Grammy-winning artist told People, “As far as the idea of ‘I made it,’ I don’t think I made it, because every milestone takes me to the next milestone. I’m making it. I’ve never had a house.
“I bought myself a studio. I have my office, but I stay in a hotel. I don’t have a house because I ain’t bought the house that says, ‘I made it.’”
