Will.i.am is busy. When he’s not writing hit songs like “OMG” for Usher, he’s searching for the next big pop star of the moment. The voice UNITED KINGDOMor running his new AI company, FYI. So how exactly does he balance it all?
The Grammy Award-winning artist turned tech entrepreneur revealed to Fortune that he maximizes the 5 to 9 after the daily grind of his 9 to 5, and he advises Generation Z to forget about work-life balance if they want to emulate his success.
“If you’re trying to build something that doesn’t exist, it’s a question of balancing dream and reality,” he says. “Work-life balance means you are working to achieve someone else’s dream. You simply have a job that supports someone else’s dream and you want to balance your work and life.
“But if it’s a balance between dream and reality, then it’s not work. It’s a dream you’re trying to make come true, and you’re ignoring your current reality.”
For example, after working on his tech business from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Will.i.am says he goes back to working on his creative business until 9 p.m. But before his AI business became a reality, his day was turned around. He first worked on music before devoting himself to technology until late in the evening.
This is why he advises young people to reframe their perception of their free time and their current reality of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“I don’t really pay attention to this reality,” he explains. “I’m trying to bring this one [a new business venture or idea] here and focusing on how can I get people who believe in this dream to help me make it come true? So for that, you have to make some kind of sacrifice to bring this thing that doesn’t exist here.
“From this perspective, work-life balance is not for architects who realize their visions. These words do not fit the mindset of materializers.”
Will.i.am doesn’t even take time out for his birthday and leaves for work in China the day after Christmas
Of course, many young people already dedicate hours to their activities and personal development after work. Millions of Gen Z and millennials tune in to 5-9 evening routines on TikTok.
But Will.i.am says crushing your dream when most people aren’t working extends to weekends, birthdays and holidays.
“I wasn’t a party person. I was always a square, which was like, ‘You’re working too much, man, let’s go out.’ Like what? Get out. I don’t want to go out. I’ve always worked,” says the rapper. “It’s your birthday, what are you going to do? To work. Aren’t you going to celebrate?”
The multimillionaire says he’s always saved the party for the stage, where he can finally enjoy the fruits of his labor.
“There’s nothing more glorious than when you’re actually at a festival. But how can you headline a festival? You have to work. My friends were going out and partying, hanging out with girls, doing drugs, drinking. I was just in the studio, working, writing songs.”
To date, he says he hasn’t gone out to celebrate a birthday, including his most recent one, which was last week, March 15.
“Like Christmas for the last 12 years: I could celebrate Christmas with my family, and then on the 26th I fly to China because it’s a dream maker’s paradise. Everything you want to do is there.”
Will.i.am was talking to Fortune in Rome for the deployment of Raidio.FYI radios in Mercedes-Benz cars.
Will.i.am’s daily work routine
7:00 a.m.: Will.i.am is not part of the CEO-approved 5 a.m. club. Instead he said Fortune he wakes up around 7 a.m. and sticks to this routine whether he lives in Los Angeles or London.
8:00 a.m.: “I walk, call and get to work,” he says, aiming to start work at 9 a.m.
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.: “I do a lot of things from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., I make my breakfast, then I go back to work at 1 p.m., I finish at 5 p.m., and that’s all my technology, like my entrepreneurial activities.”
5 p.m. to 9 p.m.: “Night hours are a source of creativity,” he says, adding that it is precisely between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. that he finds the best ideas. “These are the juicy bits, [when] I’m really drenched in emotion, to the point where I just blurt it out on the phone.
From 9 p.m.: When Will.i.am was in his late 20s, he says going to bed at 4 a.m. (and waking up at noon) was the norm. But now, at age 50 and between his tech and music pursuits, he starts winding down before going to bed after 9 p.m. and falls asleep by 11 p.m.
A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com March 23, 2025.
