Will.i.am’s Benchmark

Will.i.am. has spoken to MTV News about the secret of his success. He has recorded some of the recent best party music, rapping on and producing songs for his own band, as well as working on the albums of R&B artists such as Usher and John Legend.

When asked, he said he thinks the secret lies with playing Michael’s music while he works, helping him decipher whether his own music really compares to that of Michael’s.
“So if you want a song to be a big number one smash, then you have to play a Michael Jackson song while you’re making your song,” he told MTV.

He added that he always warns artists he’s working with that they can never truly understand how good a song is until they compare it to something else. The music mogul says it would be disastrous if he or a collaborator recorded a track only to find it couldn’t compare to the heavy beats and funky rhythms of Michael’s music.

“We call it ‘A-B-ing.’ Anything you make, there’s nothing new under the sun. So there’s always an ‘A and B’ to whatever your approach is…What you don’t want to do is have a ‘hit record’ and then turn it on and it isn’t as loud as Michael Jackson’s,” Will.i.am explained.

Source: musicrooms.net & MJWN