LucasWill.I.Am has gone from blatantly stealing beats to claiming that new technology is ruining music in his latest tirade at a (supposedly respected) Cannes Lions panel.
The quotes that Page Six pulled from the Black Eyed Peas frontman are… concerning. Will.I.Am begins by making claims that the music industry no longer exists and speculates on how to make money moving forward, before pointing to the wave of new technologies as the reason behind these issues.
“Music will always be music. Whether or not there is an industry is questionable. I don’t really know how we make money moving forward because of the tsunami called mad tech — there was mad men and now there’s mad tech, it transforms everything.”
The notorious music icon claims part of the above was a misquote, however, stating that he actually said “mad tech makes hard for mad men & marketing.” Although we can’t make heads or tails of what that’s supposed to mean, either.
He continues with the bold claim that technology has…
“toppled our industry to the point of, how do we make money?”
And while the answer clearly doesn’t lie in record sales, but rather a move to live performances, music streaming platforms and lucrative licensing deals, Will.I.Am seems unable – or unwilling – to grasp such concepts.