Will.i.am At The BMI Awards

Welcome to Young Hollywood. com. Hey guys, it's Michelle Marie coming to you from the Pantages Theatre here in Hollywood for the BMI Urban Awards. Let's go hang out with some of the songwriters, producers and artists who are being honored tonight. I'm here with will. i. am who's being honored tonight. Presidential Award, big honor. How you feeling?

I'm cool. You know, this is great. Thank you BMI. Thank you fans for putting me in a position to even be honored by the company that I worked with for the past 12 years, you know, thanks. This is fresh. I know. I'm here with my best friend Ap. From band member. I love it. You know, it's just dope. I'm here with the P. Miller family pretty much. Everybody's here. So how you guys feeling tonight?

We good. You know, this is a great night. Uh this is about the songwriters.

Mhm. Symphonique. The next big star in the family at 14. Oh, look at her. You know, Romeo doing his thing now. The next lead man in Hollywood. We got was shot.

No, because you know what? I was just thinking in my mind that, you know, you are basically like grooming young Hollywood right here. You guys are young. Making sure This is Hollywood right here. This is young Hollywood right here. You have this whole empire going on. Tell me more about the formula behind Cash Money.

Well, I think as a brand, um, as a brand, we should have you know, be able to do the same things as a Motown and a scope, you know, um not just we dominate rap, but we want to do pop, rock, country and that's the course we took. We want to just spread out and do a little more different type of music.

Creativity is what tonight is all about. And um, I actually watched the documentary with Lil Wayne. He actually takes a mic with him on the road and just busts it out whenever he's ready to to go out there and spit a rhyme. So. Oh, the famous crowd. Oh, the babies. Yeah. You teach him that?

No, um, my engineer Josh had got those mics for us.

What is it about the chemistry that you have, you know, with Lil Wayne and with Flo Rida that you think makes it a hit?

I was always like in the urban world, you know, I started out playing guitar with with Timberland, sort of like I just always gravitated toward that even though I'd come from like a rock, you know, background to some degree. Uh-huh. So, um, it just came naturally, you know, I mean, I'm signed to Cash Money, obviously, and and, you know, so the Wayne, you know, collabs, you know, came pretty naturally just from being there and Birdman and Jay Sean, so. Right. You know, it's just like it feels like family, it feels good to me, you know, we just we just work.

BMI is all about the creativeness behind a song. So tell me more about your creative process and what you do to make a hit.

Uh, I just listen to all different types of music. Like, I allow myself to be influenced by everything, you know. And that's what I want young people to do. Like a lot of young producers that I listen to, all they listen to is rap. Right. So you're being influenced by what's old, by what's already popping. You know, my favorite album right now is Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Okay. You know, the stuff that Beck did on that, that soundtrack. Like that's the kind of stuff that I'm listening to right now. Yeah. And once it goes through my filter and I'm able to put it out, it's just something new. Like, just allow yourself to be to be influenced is what I tell people.

Tonight's all about being honored. Tell me more about what you're being honored for.

Um, a record I did with Lil Wayne, Young Money, um, Bedrock, went number two, went number one hip-hop and R&B. So, we won the award for that tonight. Excited about that.

Awesome. You have a speech prepared?

We have to talk? I hope not.

Hey, what up y'all? It's your boy Romeo.

It's your boy Sean.

It's Symphonique.

It's your boy Sammy Black aka Rashad McCants, YBG in the building.

The man of many names. You know what? We just wanna give a shout out to all our fans out there. Y'all the reason we do this. Y'all the reason we keep striving. Symphonique, you got anything else you wanna say?

Just thank you for the support so much.

We are Young Hollywood.