Black Eyed Peas star will.i.am has credited Justin Timberlake with inspiring him to become Barry White for a new animated movie role - because the pair couldn’t stop talking to each other in funny voices.
The hip-hop star plays lovesick hippo Moto Moto in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, where he channels the voice of the legendary crooner.
And he admits it was a sleepy phone message he left on Timberlake’s voicemail that landed him the gig.
He says, “We were working on his (Timberlake’s) album, and when he heard my message he called me back in a silly little voice, so we started doing all these voices.
“Then I bumped into (producer) Jeffrey Katzenberg at a Grammy party who asked me if I’d like to do the music for this, and Justin who was also there said to Jeffrey, ‘Man, you’ve got to hear this dude do voices.’ So they asked me in to read for some characters, and I got the gig, and I was so happy as I loved the first film so much.”
