Hip-hop producer/rapper Will.I.Am is set to play Kestrel/John Wraith in the new X-men Origins: Wolverine movie.

Kestrel, a powerful teleporter, was part of Team X along with Wolverine, Sabretooth, and others. His alter ego is John Wraith. Like the other members of Team X, he was given an artificial age suppressant, and his time as a secret agent and a member of the Weapon X program has left John somewhat paranoid. Living in a veritable death trap, John trusts no one.

John Lucas at PopZara reports that there was almost a problem with will.i.am (birth name: William Adams, Jr.) capturing the role of John Wraith due to his eyes-wide enthusiasm for the project as an X-Men expert initially chafing the director. Hear from the artist here on the pep he has for the role:

 “You don’t understand, check this out, this is how much of a fan I am. I went to the casting right, and they asked me if I knew about X-Men. I was like, ‘Pssh, I know X-Men.’ They were like, ‘Yeah, you know, you’re gonna play a teleporter.’ And I was like, ‘You mean like Night Crawler?’ ‘Night Crawler wasn’t a teleporter.’ ‘Yes he was a teleporter! The dude was a teleporter!’…He would be on the walls, and he was in the Presidential office disappearing and people couldn’t really hit him. He was like, disappearing, poof poof. I was like, ‘Yo, I’m telling you, homey.’ I’m a fan of X-Men.”

Lucas goes on to blog, “That’s the truncated version, of course. His enthusiasm broke the meter. The film centered around the Weapon X-powered Team X is sure to make an X-cess amount of box office dollars for X-Men franchise X-cellence. Prepare to take your ex and your next to the theaters come May 1, 2009.”