Future of Music: Will.i.am

Record companies should be a tour company that sends the bands on the road and still puts the fuckin' shits on the radio. The reason the song's on the radio is so they can sell concert tickets and T-shirts. The labels should do research on the marketplace, and they should be the band's merchandise company, going out and flooding the market and selling T-shirts. Billboard should have not just how many albums you sold, but how many fuckin' T-shirts you sold, because that's more money, and that's my manager's idea.

Do you think artists care anymore if they make music in the form of albums?

The record industry adapted to every single format music was put on. The record company itself started the vinyl, because Phillips and RCA made vinyl and phonographs. Then the eight-track came out and we adapted to it. We adapted to the CD. The only thing we haven't adapted to is the Internet.

Is music as important to people's lives as it was?

Yeah. Music still has an impact on people's lives. It's just that there's more things around it. There's more things to know. Music is a social thing, it hits you personally, and then you socialize about it. It just so happens when people were rebelling in the 1960s, they revolted and rebelled over music. Now there's things for people to rebel and revolt about, but people ain't revolting and rebelling because there's no leaders. There's no Malcolm Xs or Martin Luther Kings or Ghandis, there's nobody now. It's not because music isn't affecting people, it's just that for some odd reason, there's nobody leading, and there's no songs being written about leading people. People are comfortable with their devices and their upgrades and their instant gratification of whatever it is they want to do.