Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am has revealed the meaning behind the album cover of our childhood.
2009 was an incredible time for music - you had Eminem's comeback album Relapse, Drake's So Far Gone mixtape and the deluxe re-release of The Fame Monster by Lady Gaga, to name a few.
Kid Cudi's 'Day ‘n’ Nite' was blaring on the radio along with Beyoncé's 'Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)' and Jay-Z & Alicia Keys' 'Empire State of Mind'.
But arguably the most influential album of that year was the Black Eyed Peas' fifth studio record The E.N.D.
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The combination of will.i.am’s futuristic production and Fergie’s banging vocals brought us three back-to-back number-one singles 'Boom Boom Pow', 'I Gotta Feeling', and 'Imma Be'.
Reminiscing over the project in a recent YouTube video for the group, will.i.am - real name William James Adams Jr. - said: "The whole entire project was about electronic music."
As the producer dissected The E.N.D, he revealed that the green 'robotic' hologram on the front cover was 'AI'.
"This is a configuration of all of our attributes, my face, AP's face, Taboo's face, Fergie's face, to create this persona," the 50-year-old said.
"So this was like the AI persona avatar that narrated the whole entire record."
Sharing a few more surprises, will.i.am added: "So speaking of Mr. Boom, there was a first single called 'Boom Boom Pow', where we were in the computer.
"Then we came with 'I Gotta Feeling'.
"And then we came up with 'Meet Me Halfway'.
"And then we did 'Imma Be', 'Rock That Body', which is two songs in one video."
Commenting underneath the clip, one fan gushed: "One of the best albums of all time. My childhood fr."
"You made my teenage years better with that album," a second said.
"Ya'll taught me how partying was supposed to feel like at age 10," a third wrote.
Others spoke about how will.i.am 'was ahead of his time with that whole prediction and concept'.
"That's freaking nuts man," they said.
"Ahead of time for sure. Glad you used futuristic music in the right way. Some people use it for the wrong reasons (not doing any effort)," another penned.
"Visionaries, I really admire the storytelling on this album," someone else added.
Clearing up some confusion over the 'AI' remark in the comments, a fourth viewer explained: "He didn't mean that the artwork was created with AI or something. He meant that the fictional CHARACTER on the artwork (that narrates the album etc.) is an AI."
Topics: Music, Celebrity, Entertainment
Anish Vij