Will.I.Am Explains Inspiration for Obama ‘Yes We Can’ Video

One of the hottest viral videos on the web this week has nothing to do with Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse, stupid pet tricks or naked starlets. It's Will.I.Am's 'Yes We Can' video, a clip built around a speech by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. The video, which features Scarlett Johansson, Common, John Legend, Nicole Scherzinger, Herbie Hancock, basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, actress Kate Walsh and more, has received over 10 million views, including two-and-a-half million on YouTube.

"It was just a knock in the head to remember that it's not black and white," Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.I.Am tells AOL Music at the annual Peapod show. "That speech, the 'Yes we can' speech -- he has a lot of speeches that are great [like] Super Tuesday's speech: 'We are the ones we've been waiting for' -- those words are inspirational to me. They inspire you to want to change yourself," the rapper recalls.

Like many of the artists supporting Obama, Will is driven by a need for change and the multi-faceted artist subscribes to the belief that all races could use the same resolutions. "It's one thing to say, 'Let's change,' but it's only going to change if its citizens realize that there's no difference between me and you, regardless if you're white and I'm black," Will explains.

"It has nothing to do with race, it's just acknowledging that we're Americans and facing the challenges we have as a nation to recover from the situation that we're in financially, educationally, health-wise ... It just made me believe that we can change. In the world of politics there's been so many promises, so many adverts that promote it and then here we are. But being inspired to do so, when certain words come across you, words of hope and done in a way to where you know you can do it, that's how it struck a chord."