The Black Eyed Peas male leader renders his obsession with science, technology and space discovery while strings and choirs play the backsound.
- August 29, 2012
AceShowbiz -
Black Eyed Peas' frontman will.i.am made history when his latest single "Reach for the Stars" premiered on live broadcast from a remote traveler on planet Mars. The educational breakthrough took place via Curiosity Rover to a news forum held at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. It lasted for 4 minutes and 24 seconds.
NASA's associate administrator for education, Leland Melvin, said "Reach for the Stars" was the first song to beam down to earth from the surface of another planet. It was played when the team members who landed the Mars Curiosity Rover had a question and answer session with students about the mission and the knowledge behind it.
The venture was a collaboration between NASA, a digital curriculum company Discovery Education and will.'s i.am.angel Foundation which primary concern is to supply digital resources for kindergarten and grade 12 classrooms. His song is a perfect fit for the project because it bears the content of obsession with science, technology and space discovery.
According to will.i.am, his project with NASA was actually a dream come true since he was a big fan of the celestial bodies. He said, "I had no idea that one day I would have a meeting at NASA, and I never thought that in a billion years a song would hitch a ride on a rocket and when it lands on Mars it would be beamed back to earth."
will doesn't generate any electronic pop sound but features a children's choir and an orchestra instead. "I don't think it's a right thing to do to send a computer beat to Mars," he explained. "So I wanted to put an orchestra together to show human collaboration, exercising their skills, their craft. That robot is going to Mars but a piece of humanity, art, is going as well."
Before the event, the BEP member released an excerpt of his song which became more timely relevant and touching by the death of Neil Armstrong. "Why do they say the sky is the limit/ When I've seen them footprints on the moon?" he sings. "I know that Mars might be far/ but baby it ain't really that far."
