A movie crew was shooting up the street, and the kid who’d grow up to be will.i.am wanted to go watch. His mother had a different idea. “Sit your butt over here on this couch,” she told him.
He was growing up in the Estrada Courts housing projects in Boyle Heights, on the east side of Los Angeles, where his mom, Debra, raised him. Years later he told the whole story on “The Graham Norton Show,” which aired on BBC One on Feb. 2, 2018. Cuba Gooding Jr. and Imelda Staunton were on the couch next to him.
The first near miss was “Electric Boogaloo,” the breakdancing movie. It was filming just up the road from his family’s place, at a spot he says is now Oscar De La Hoya’s boxing gym. Someone came by to tell him. His mom kept him home anyway, and he figures his report card, with maybe a few D’s on it, didn’t help his case.
Then the same person came knocking again, and this time the news was a lot bigger. Michael Jackson was making a music video. He wasn’t shooting it on some studio lot across town, either. He was filming in the alleyways by the projects, close to will.i.am’s front door.
So which video was it?
“Michael Jackson was shooting ‘Thriller,'” will.i.am told Norton. The “Thriller” short film, directed by John Landis, was shot around Los Angeles in 1983. Its famous zombie dance was filmed at the corner of Union Pacific Avenue and South Calzona Street in Boyle Heights, the same part of town where will.i.am lived. Los Angeles magazine, looking back in 2012, put that corner simply “in East L.A.”
Born in March 1975, will.i.am was 8 that year. Michael Jackson and a crew full of zombies were a few streets away, and someone was at the door to tell him about it.
His mom’s answer was quick. “You ain’t goin’ in no alley with no Michael Jackson,” she said. When you play the clip, watch how fast the studio audience goes from listening to laughing once he gets to her line.
will.i.am tells Graham Norton how his mom kept him away from two famous shoots
This is the show’s official upload. The “Electric Boogaloo” story runs from about 0:07 to 0:53, the Michael Jackson part starts at about 1:00, and his mom’s alley line comes at about 1:26, with the laughter right after.
His mom won that round, but he got a lot closer to Michael later on. In 2006 Michael asked for his help on new recordings, and the two of them spent time in the studio together. When the “Thriller” album turned 25, will.i.am reworked songs from it for the “Thriller 25” anniversary edition, released in February 2008. He produced “The Girl Is Mine 2008” and “Beat It 2008,” and he co-produced “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) 2008” with Michael himself.
Michael “stood in the studio himself, mastering and mixing everything,” will.i.am told Rolling Stone in 2010. “And he was very critical about every single detail.” He put it more simply to Metro in 2011: “Working together was awesome.”
Somewhere in Boyle Heights, his mother had kept an 8-year-old out of a “Thriller” alley. A quarter century later, the credits on “P.Y.T. 2008” put her son’s name next to Michael’s.