Black Eyed Peas Bio

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Black Eyed Peas Pictures

The Black Eyed Peas (BEP) is an American hip hop/pop musical group based in Los Angeles. The group is composed of will.i.am, apl.de.ap, Taboo, and Fergie. Since their breakout album Elephunk in 2003, the group's hip hop/dance pop-oriented style has sold an estimated 20 million albums worldwide and 13 million singles. The group is one of only eleven artists to have ever held the number 1 and 2 spots on the Billboard Hot 100 at the same time. With 22 consecutive weeks at No. 1, the Peas push past Usher's record for most consecutive frames atop the Hot 100 (Usher lasted at the top for 19 weeks with the hits "Yeah!" and "Burn" in 2004). Before Black Eyed Peas, Will.I.Am and Apl.De.Ap were in a group called The Atban Klann signed to Eazy E's Ruthless Records.

Black Eyed Peas: Career

Black Eyed Peas - 1998-2001: Behind the Front and Bridging the Gap

The pop group was signed to Interscope Records and released their debut Behind the Front in 1998. The album won the Peas (and their accompanying live band, the Bucky Jonson) critical acclaim. It featured the single "Joints & Jams", which was included on the soundtrack of the Academy Award-nominated film Bulworth. Their second album, Bridging the Gap, was released in 2000; it featured the single "Request Line" featuring Macy Gray.

Black Eyed Peas - 2003-2004: Elephunk

The Black Eyed Peas performing on August 24, 2006

Their breakout album, Elephunk, was released in 2003. It was the group's first album to feature the vocals of Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson and she became the replacement for background singer Kim Hill, who left the band in 2000. Originally, Nicole Scherzinger (lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls) was approached to join the Peas. She was forced to decline because she was a member of Eden's Crush and was under contract. She later introduced Fergie to Will.I.Am.

Rolling Stone notes that since 2003, when the group "hired a blond bombshell named Stacy 'Fergie' Ferguson and gave up their pursuit of backpack-rapper cred, they have made a kind of spiritual practice of recording dumb songs - a total aesthetic commitment that extends from their garish wardrobes to their United Colors of Benetton worldview."

From Elephunk came "Where is the Love?", a single featuring Justin Timberlake which became Black Eyed Peas' first major hit, peaking at #8 on the U.S. Hot 100, but topping the charts practically everywhere else, including six weeks at #1 in the UK where it became the biggest-selling single of 2003. The single had similar results in Australia, staying at #1 for 6 weeks as well. In an interview with TalkofFame.com, Taboo shared that Justin Timberlake's split with Britney Spears impacted the recording of "Where Is The Love?".

The album subsequently spawned "Shut Up", which peaked at #2 in the UK and topped the charts in many other European countries including France and Germany, as well as Australia, holding on to the #1 spot for 3 weeks there. Elephunk won worldwide success and went Gold and Platinum in the US, UK, Germany, and other European markets.

The third single from the album, although significantly re-styled from the original Elephunk version, "Hey Mama" hit the top 5 in Australia and the top 10 in the UK, Germany and other European countries and reached #23 in the U.S. The song received even more exposure in 2003 when it was featured in the second of iPod's silhouette TV commercials.

During Black Eyed Peas' concert tour in Asia in 2004, apl.de.ap's life story was featured in a weekly Filipino TV drama special called Maalaala Mo Kaya ("Would You Remember"), which explained his childhood with his poor family in Angeles City, Pampanga, Philippines. ("The Apl Song", with the chorus written in Tagalog, a language of the Philippines, from their album Elephunk, tells his story.) It was at this time that apl.de.ap formed the Filipino Songwriters and Artist Group (FSAG) with Leli, a songwriter from Pampanga, Philippines, who had developed her writing craft in Compton in the early eighties.

Black Eyed Peas' song "Let's Get Retarded" was restyled as "Let's Get It Started" for an NBA Finals worldwide commercial. The song was quite successful on the charts worldwide, peaking at #21 on the U.S. Hot 100, #11 in the UK, and at #2 in Australia. This spot featured Carlos Santana. On the CD, it is listed as a bonus track, and is before the other bonus track "Third Eye". The unrevised song had great success as a single, particularly on the iTunes music download service and was featured on the soundtrack to the stoner road trip comedy Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. The song earned the group a 2005 Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. Black Eyed Peas were then featured in the video game The Urbz: Sims in the City as characters. They re-recorded "Let's Get It Started" and "Shut Up" as well as other songs in "Simlish", the dialect language used by The Sims characters. This revised version was used in the ads for the iMac G5, with will.i.am and Fergie singing about the computer

In 2004, The Black Eyed Peas embarked on the Elephunk Tour, hitting many countries, including several countries of Africa and Europe.

Black Eyed Peas - 2008-present: The E.N.D.

The group's fifth studio album, The E.N.D. ("The Energy Never Dies"), was released on June 9, 2009. "Boom Boom Pow" was released on February 22 online and March 30 on iTunes. It became the group's first song to reach #1, where it remained for 12 weeks, on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #1 in Australia, in Canada, and in the UK. The album has a more electro-hop beat rather than the usual hip hop/R&B feeling of their previous albums. The album entered the number one position on the Billboard 200 for the publication's week ending June 27, 2009, selling 304,000 copies during the week ending June 14, 2009.

The first promo single, "Imma Be", was released for download on iTunes on May 19 in the US, entering the Billboard Hot 100 at number 50 on the week ending June 6, 2009.

Group front man will.i.am told Billboard that The E.N.D. stands for "The Energy Never Dies", which describes his model for a project that will be living and frequently updated throughout its designated cycle. "It's a diary ... of music that at any given time, depending on the inspiration, you can add to it," the artist/producer/songwriter explains. "I'm trying to break away from the concept of an album. What is an album when you put 12 songs on iTunes and people can pick at it like scabs? That's not an album. There is no album anymore." He describes the music as "a lot of dance stuff, real melodic, electronic, soulful. We call it, like, electric static funk, something like that."

Band member Taboo told iProng Magazine that The E.N.D. may be the last Black Eyed Peas album released in physical form, in favor of digital-only album releases in the future. "Possibly, this is the last physical CD for any group, let alone a Black Eyed Peas CD. Because four years from now, we don't know what it could be," he explained. "It's one thing to just have a CD and need to live with that CD, but what if you were able to take those fifteen songs, and then you got ten songs the next month that you couldn't have on the CD? And then we just keep on giving you new material and keeping it fresh and reinventing the song."

The second promo single "Alive" was released for Download on May 26.

The third promo single "Meet Me Halfway" was released for Download in the US on June 2.

After the release of The E.N.D., the Black Eyed Peas released "I Gotta Feeling", produced by David Guetta, as the second official single from the album. "I Gotta Feeling" climbed to number one on the US iTunes chart replacing "Boom Boom Pow" which dropped to number two. The single charted at number three and then went to number one on the UK Singles Chart. It debuted at number 2 on the Hot 100 behind "Boom Boom Pow" and later surpassed it, taking the number 1 spot. However, the song has drawn some criticism for the use of the words mazel tov and L'Chaim, with Wayne Gladstone of Cracked.com calling it excessively repetitive and "Officially the Worst Song Ever". The Black Eyed Peas joined a very elite group of artists who have held the No.1 and 2 Spot on the Hot 100 simultaneously. Since Boom Boom Pow" reached the number 1 spot in April, the group has been on top of the chart for 20 consecutive weeks, more than any other artist of the decade.

On Wednesday, June 17, 2009 at 12pm, the Black Eyed Peas performed a special acoustic performance at Campo De Bocci in Livermore, California for RJ Delos Santos who is dying from a brain tumor. This was the second (the first being the Pussycat Dolls) of a series of concerts for Delos Santos.

On the same night they performed on the pre-recorded show Alan Carr: Chatty Man. The band were interviewed and performed their single "I Gotta Feeling".

In July, they made an appearance at the Isle of MTV in Malta.

On July 30, Billboard.com announced that the Black Eyed Peas set a record for the longest successive No. 1 chart run by a duo or group in the Billboard Hot 100's history. "I Gotta Feeling" hit its fifth consecutive week at No. 1, following 12 weeks at the top by the Peas' "Boom Boom Pow." Boyz II Men reigned on the chart for two 16-week runs in the mid-'90s.

Following its release, will.i.am remarked that the album had been inspired by a trip to Australia, specifically the sound of The Presets' My People. "The energy on the Presets' small little stage was crazy energy. That song My People (he sings the chorus) - that s . . . is wild," will.i.am said, ""That's the reason why this record sounds the way it does - my three months in Australia."

In September, the group embarks on The E.N.D. World Tour, with dates announced in Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The tour is expected to last well into 2010.

"Meet Me Halfway" was announced the third single taken from the album. A music video will premiere for the song sometime in November.

Muslim Controversy

In autumn 2009, the Black Eyed Peas scheduled a concert in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to which the Malaysian government banned Muslims from attending due to its sponsorship by the alcoholic drinks company Guinness. The website for the Malaysian date even prevented Muslims from browsing the site, asking "Are you a non-Muslim aged 18 years and above?" If the user clicked "No", the site responded "Sorry! This site is only open to non-Muslims aged 18 years and above." The ban was later reversed but the government did not explain why it had changed its mind.

Black Eyed Peas: Band members