will.i.am reveals line from Black Eyed Peas 2009 hit refers to AI

(KRON) — Back in the 2000s, the Black Eyed Peas released hit after hit and was one of the biggest acts in music for nearly a decade. One of the hits was “Boom Boom Pow.”

Now it seems the song, which was a Billboard No. 1 hit for 12 weeks and has more than half-a-billion views on YouTube, was referring to artificial intelligence.

That’s according to will.i.am., whose real name is William James Adams Jr. The world-renowned musician revealed to KRON4 on Tuesday while he was in San Francisco from Dreamforce. Adams is also a tech entrepreneur as the founder and CEO of FYI.AI.

“We had a song called ‘Boom Boom Pow,’ and Fergie says, ‘I’m so three thousand and eight. You’re so two thousand and late,'” Adams tells KRON4. “What we meant by that in 2008, nine and 10, we were dabbling and experimenting with AI back then.”

Adams continues to say that the group’s 2010 hit “Imma Be” laid out a vision for what AI will look like in the future. He said the music video shows that. A part of the video shows a computer being used to power an AI-powered robot.

“You can see clearly that we were predicting the state of AI that we are in now with text to music,” Adams said. “That video kicked the vision off.”

Adams said AI and technology were the inspiration for the name of the Black Eyed Peas’ 2009 album “The E.N.D.” (The Energy Never Dies).

Listen to a clip of Adams explaining the ties to AI in the Black Eyed Peas’ music. Watch below.

Adams has made it known he is a big proponent and fan of tech and the AI space.

“I love technology,” Adams said. “I make music because the computer is my amplifier. It allows me to take my ideas and execute them and broadcast them to the world… Because of my love for technology, I wanted to meet people that build these systems.”

FYI.AI was founded in 2022, according to the company’s LinkedIn.

Watch the will.i.am interview with KRON4’s Stephanie Lin in the video player at the top of this story.