Open Letter to will.i.am

Dear will.i.am,

I saw recently where you had a beef with record buyers because your solo debut, Songs About Girls, registered “only” 20,000 albums sold in Sound Scan in the first week of its release, and that, since you founded the Black Eyed Peas and introduced the world to Fergie, you figured that you deserved to sell a comparable number of albums to what one of their releases would.

Dude, get real. What did Black Eyed Peas sell before you fired that other gal for Fergie? I’m sure that it was well short of 20,000 a week! And when I say “get real,” I don’t just mean it that logical sense, I also mean it in the musical sense. With all of the great emcees and producers out there, do you, really, really think that you measure up well enough to “deserve” better album sales than 20,000 in a week on your solo debut?

I was listening to L.L. Cool J’s classic Radio last week, and nothing that you have put out can compare to what happens on that 22-year-old album recorded by a teenager! You don’t have the passion, chops, taste, or coolness in evidence to touch a work like that.

There’s only one weak track on that album, “I Want You”, and that’s fine, because it’s the last one on there, and L.L. has already sold everyone on his greatness by then; your albums are full of filler crap like that with only a few hits. On Radio, he’s the type of guy who lays it all out there with no gussied up production and just kills, and you’re the type of guy with no qualms about just trying to sell as many albums as possible by dancing like a pussy on Best Buy commercials and shit.

Yeah, that’s fine, if that’s where your coming from, since L.L. obviously later went all sitcom star and shit, whoring himself out as much as you do these days, but the critical distinction is that you don’t have an album like Radio in your past in order to have earned sufficient respect from enough music fans to where you would give them a reason to check out anything from you without Fergie (or an equally huge star) on the cover.

Man, I would be stoked to sell 20,000 albums in a week! Do you think that Radio sold 20,000 in its first week?

Enjoy it while it lasts,

LenBarker