Quotes from will.i.am

'Transformers' inspired me as a kid.

I was born and raised in East Los Angeles by a single mom who had three biological kids and adopted four more. I never met my dad.

Everything affects hip-hop. The question is, how does it affect the money that corporations are going to invest to put out different kinds of hip-hop?

Traveling in Europe made me understand that America has an island mentality: No one exists except us. There's a whole other world out there, but most Americans - all they know is America, the marketing plan.

You can rule ignorance; you can manipulate the illiterate; you can do whatever you want when a people are uneducated, so that goes in line with corrupt business and corrupt politics.

Most of these people who are celebrities now don't do anything to deserve it, so by that fact alone, I don't want to be one.

I've got all this stuff in my head at the same time as I'm doing stuff and I don't know how to stop or slow down.

We need creative people working with broadcasters, making smart content to inspire people to be geniuses.

I love the Asian countries.

I love India, Russia and touring has made me many friends abroad.

My mom's never been married. I've never even seen my mom kiss a dude.

Now that Obama's president, it changes inner-city youths. They can now not just dream to be Lil Waynes and 50 Cents, but they can now dream to be Obamas.

Romantic love is painful.

I don't dream to be like mega crazy rich.

Every single song that I've listened to is in my memory forever.

If you listen to the songs I write, they are the most ADHD songs ever. They have five hooks in one and it all happens in three minutes.

Every young person is going to be inspired to be a maker from now on. It's like how everyone used to want to be a musician, an actor, an athlete -- but a maker is what people are going to want to be.

It's my hope to inspire kids around the world to want to be tech stars in stem subjects.

It's a rare combination to have someone who can write songs and sing well.

I don't know what silence sounds like anymore.

Hip-hop culture is probably one of the most powerful things to come out of America in a long time - everything from the music to the art to the dance to the language.

When you think about the guys who started Twitter, and the Google guys, and the Facebook guys and the Napster guys, and the Microsoft guys, and the Dell guys and the Instagram guys, it's all guys. The girls, they're being left behind.

There's only one type of music and that's good music, no matter what genre it is.

We have no control over the outcome of anything. Like the planet and global warming, we don't control that. If politicians want a war we don't control that. Acts of terrorism, we can't control them.