As we mentioned earlier this year (and really, we broke the news :), R&B/hip-pop musician Will.I.Am. of the Black Eyed Peas and Academy-Award-winning composer Hans Zimmer (“The Dark Knight,” “The Thin Red Line”) teamed up for the score to the animated DreamWorks film, “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.”
The duo wrote four songs together and we’d be proud of the news we broke if it weren’t for the godawful remix of “I Like to Move It,” by Reel 2 Reel; evidently a holdover from the first film. Yeah, we know it’s for kids and all, but god, the original is so awful, no parent would ever want to really bestow that upon their children would they?
Worst, part of this L.A. Times story? This Will. I.Am quote about a musical affectation that is currently ruining music as we speak. “I’ve been wanting to call you,” Will.I.Am saidto Zimmer. “I’ve been using this vocoder, and it’s the same vocoder that everybody has.”
“It’s about being stripped away from your home, and not knowing really where you come from,” I.Am, said of the tune “The Traveling Song,” written by he and Zimmer. “But wherever you are — because of your friends — that is your home now. Those lyrics really sum up my life, a black guy in a Mexican neighborhood, and apl.de.ap’s life, being giving up for adoption at 14 and coming to America not knowing English. We made it our home because of our friendship, and that’s what ‘Madagascar’ is about.”
Will.I Am. is also a part of the film’s cast voicing the studly hippo and watering hole lothario Moto Moto. Whatever, all we know is that Zimmer better get a Oscar nomination for his score to “The Dark Knight.” His atonal, mildly-industrial and sometimes cacophonous score was a revelation in film scores and should be celebrated as such. And Will.I.Am could be barred from ever appearing on a recorded song, let alone on a soundtrack, and we would not shed a tear.