There were around 200 people crammed into the small auditorium. I was very nervous, standing with my friends, even though I wasn’t really going to have to do anything. It was my fifth grade graduation and the prospect of going on to middle school and moving on from my group of friends was very daunting, like exploring a dark abandoned house in the middle of the night. The auditorium was stuffy and loud. I wasn’t really paying attention, but then a song started to play:
“You can be the greatest
You can be the best
You can be the King-Kong banging on your chest…” (“Hall” 1-3)
The lyrics were really inspirational. I felt that maybe, perhaps, I could move on and confront what lay ahead. Will.i.am, the author of “Hall of Fame”, started creating music in 1987 as an eighth grader. He was born on March 15, 1975 in Los Angeles. He grew up in the hood without his father, and was very poor. Will.i.am had a dream to move his mother put og the hood, and as he quotes, “Work and live to make my mother proud.” He released “Hall of Fame” in 2012 with the Black Eyed Peas, and it soon became a pop rock hit. Will.i.am uses metaphors, allusions, and rhymes to impress on his audience that you can be and do anything if you dedicate yourself.
Will.i.am introduces the message that you can be anything if you dedicate yourself through the use of metaphors. In the first verse, Will.i.am immediately starts rapping about how you can be great:
“You can be the King-Kong banging on your chest” (“Hall” 3). In this line he is using a metaphor to compare your limits to a huge unstoppable ape, in order show that you can be amazing and achieve greatness. This reveals the theme that you can do anything by saying to test your limits and push yourself. Will.i.am is explaining that because then you will never know how great you can be. You shouldn’t let your limits hold you back.
Through the use of allusions, Will.i.am demonstrates the message that you can be and do anything while rapping about impossible that you can achieve in the fourth verse. He says,
“You can walk straight through hell with a smile” (“Hall”hWill.i.am is alluding to hell, which is a terrible place where people who are evil go when they die. This shows the theme that you can do anything if you dedicate by saying that even in the worst circumstances, like hell, you can survive and go on in life. By relying on his listeners understanding of how terrible of a place hell is, Will.i.am brings out a reaction of impossibility and something being the worst, which makes the audience realize what can be achieved if they test their limits.
Will.i.am also uses rhyme to help his audience understand that you can be and do anyhting if you dedicate yourself. In the ninth verse, Will.i.am goes from rapping about what you can do, to rapping about what you can be:
“Be students, be teachers
Be politicians, be preachers” (“Hall” 38-39)
By rhyming with teachers and preachers, Will.i.am is connecting the idea of learning and teaching with politics and religion. These lines reveal the message that if you try your hardest, whether that’s at school, your job, or anything else, you can be anything and anyone that you want. From learners and teachers to politicians and preachers.
A particular strength of “Hall of Fame” is the music video, which adds visuals to the already inspiring lyrics. In the video, will.i.am moves between him singing/rapping, a deaf ballerina struggling to succeed, and a teen getting beat up and learning to defend himself by boxing. The story of the ballerina and the boxer are perfectly paired with the lyrics that create the visual of dedicating yourself to become the best. Thi strengthens the song by not only rapping about what you can achieve, but by showing how it can and has been done. The video inspires will.i.am’s listeners to take action themselves, and to achieve great things through dedication and hard work.
One weakness of “Hall of Fame” the last three verses, which are very repetitive and annoying:
(You can be a champion) You can be the greatest, you can be the best
(You can be a champion) You can be the King Kong banging on you chest
You can beat the world (you can be a champion)
You can beat the war (you can be a champion)
You could talk to God, go banging on his door (you can be a champion)
You can throw your hands up (you can be a champion)
You can beat the clock (you can be a champion)
You can move mountains (you can be a champion)
You can break rocks (you can be a champion)
You can be a master (you can be a champion)
Don’t wait for luck (you can be a champion)
Dedicate yourself and you can find yourself (you can be a champion)
Standing in the hall of fame (you can be a champion)” (“Hall” 52-64).
Not only does Will.i.am repeat lyrics that he’s already used multple times, he also adds an annoying and distracting background music that repeats the line “You can be a champion” 12 times. This weakens the song by distracting the listener from actual lyrics and message, with a repetitive and annoying background line that also overlaps with the ongoing lyrics, which weakens the message even more. “Hall of Fame” would have been a much stronger song without such a repetitive and distracting ending.
As you can see, “Hall of Fame” conveys the important message that you can be and do anything. This message resonated with me because my parents are constantly pushing me to do new things, like playing tennis or cooking. I always tell them that I don’t want to because I’ll suck at it or be terrible, and while this is sometimes true, I commonly succeed. Through these experiences I have gotten a similar result to Will.i.am’s message. The more I push and dedicate myself the better I do. His message helps me because it pushes me to be my best possible self. This message is also really critical to all the immigrants coming into the U.S.. Most of them think that it’s this perfect place where all their dreams will come true. This is far from the truth though, and sadly lots of the immigrants end up with the opposite kind of life as their dream, because as Will.i.am raps in “Hall of Fame,” they “Waited for luck.” His message would help immigrants, because if they took it seriously it could help them achieve their dream, not by sitting around but by pushing themselves. Will.i.am gives off an important message, that unlike many current songs, should be taken to heart. If we want to make a positive change in our life, we need to take action and create our own success.
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