"Yes We Can": The Story Behind Will.i.am's Viral Hit

In February, Black Eyed Pea Will.i.am set one of Barack Obama's speeches to music, and a pop-cultural movement for the candidate took on new life. Rolling Stone spoke to the rapper-producer about the clip, which has been viewed 16 million times on YouTube.

What inspired the "Yes We Can" video?
About four years ago we worked with the DNC and I became really good friends with Terry McAuliffe, who represented Kerry. He called me and he asked if I was gonna support Hillary, and at the time, I was confused — I didn't know what I was gonna do. A couple of weeks passed and at Super Tuesday in New Hampshire I saw Obama's speech, and that's what did it for me — he inspired me to want me to change myself to better America. It made me reflect on the opportunities I had. I thought of all the civil rights protests and Kennedy and Martin Luther King and all the freedom fighters. I was like, "Wow, this is crazy, because Obama is probably one of the only blatant freedom fighters that we have right now in the media." And it all made sense to me, the difference between an agenda and a movement. And I was like, "Wow, this is a movement."

Had you ever responded to a politician's speech the way you did that day?
Nope. When I went to school we had the teacher recite Martin Luther King speeches, Abraham Lincoln speeches, John F. Kennedy speeches, and I started thinking, "Who are these kids reciting?" Children say, "I wanna be like 50 Cent, I wanna be like Kanye West, I wanna be like Madonna, I wanna be like Fergie." Shouldn't they say, "I wanna be like Barack Obama?" "I wanna be like Hillary Clinton?"

That's when I had the idea, I'm gonna turn this speech into a song. Because there's really no difference between a speech and a song. [Starts rapping 50 Cent's "In Da Club"] "Up in the club, sippin' on ..." People sing the lyrics to all these songs, they know them verbatim, homie. So, that's what I wanted to do. And when I finished it I sent it to John Legend via e-mail, and then I was like, "Yo, can you record yourself doing it on video?" We finished the song and the video in four days. I took it to my record company and they said, "Well that's cool, we can't really do anything with it, you know, 'cause it's endorsing the candidate." So we were on our own. It all happened without a campaign — the campaign didn't come up with the concept. Meanwhile, Hillary spent millions of dollars on content and this one that accumulated tens of millions of views on the Internet cost nothing.

What signs did you see of its impact?
I think it put an emotion to the campaign. I think the song completed that it's a we. It's not black, it's white, it's Latin, it's America. And it's today's America realizing how powerful we are. It moved so fast through the Internet, it proved that these little tools — that most politicians didn't even notice — were powerful. When you're watching TV you have no choice but to watch that propaganda commercial. The Internet doesn't work that way. You have a choice whether or not you wanna forward it to your friend, or whether or not you even wanna watch it. The rules changed because of the Internet. And "Yes We Can" and the Obama campaign figured that out before any of them did because what Obama stands for is truth. It is engaging and it is leveling the playing field to where the common folk realize the power the elitists have. Pepsi and General Motors and Ford are on the same level on the Internet as my sister.