Black Eyed Peas life and biography

Developing their distinctive fresh music, mix of hip-hop, R&B, jazz, and soul along with compelling deep meaning lyrics, Black Eyed Peas have become one of the American established hip-hop groups. This exceptional unique style of the group combined with out-of-the-box technique to hip-hop music has driven them to gain devoted fans worldwide.

"We were just thinking of good songs, good music," the group admitted. "We didn't want to say anything typical, like 'My style is this, and my rhymes are like that.'" One of the band's personnels, Stacy Ferguson aka Fergie even added, "This group is just totally open to new ideas and directions."

This group consisted of four members. Allen Pineda Lindo known as apl.de.ap has a blood mixture of Filipino and African-American, while Jaime Gomez a.k.a Taboo is a Mexican, and American Indian descendant, while William James Adams Jr. or known as will.i.am was born in Los Angeles, California. Last but not least is the only female member of the band, Fergie who was a native Californian.

Tracing back to the late 1989, will.i.am was an eighth grade student who joined a break-dancing club named Tribal Nation where he first met apl.de.ap. Having desire to embark on a career in hip-hop music industry, these two young men then formed a group named Atban Klann which was actually an acronym for "A Tribe Beyond a Nation".

With the perfect combination of break-dance and hip-hop style, they showcased their skills together in Los Angeles. In 1992, a good opportunity came as a music label owner named Eazy-E spotted their talent and eventually signed them under his Ruthless Records. Unfortunately, this duo's album later was shelved since the label felt unsure to handle the marketing of the group's non-violent tune. Following this disappointment, will.i.am and apl.de.ap. ended their contract with Ruthless after Eazy-E passed away because of AIDS in 1995.

Resolutely courageous, they went on adding one more personnel, Taboo, and changed the name of the group into Black Eyed Peas. With the new formation, they started to draw people's attention through their shows around L.A. Becoming well known in the L.A. college music circuit, a representative of Interscope Records offered the group a record deal after attending one of their shows in 1997. In the following year, BEP released their debut album entitled "Behind the Front" which was highly praised and brought surprise because they included sounds created by a live band in it.

Their next album was "Bridging the Gap" which came up in 2000. In this effort, BEP collaborated with such artists as DJ Premier, Wyclef Jean, Mos Def, De La Soul, Jurassic 5's Chali 2na, and Macy Gray. Though already releasing two efforts, they didn't claim their worldwide fame until their third album "Elephunk" (2003).

After the arrival of "Elephunk", they recruited Fergie as a substitute for backing vocalist Kim Hill who left the band in 2000. This album went platinum in U.S. and Europe, selling more than 7 million copies around the world. Its songs, such as "Where Is the Love?", "Shut Up" and "Hey Mama" became major hits that entered both U.K. Songs chart and U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

On top of their success, "Where Is the Love?" was even nominated as Record of the Year at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards. This accomplishment evoked them to be one of the most distinguished music groups for they have created compositions which passed through any races, backgrounds and ages, abandoning boundaries and inhibitions.

In 2004, BEP was involved in John Kerry's presidential campaign and also revised one of their singles "Let's Get Retarted" by re-constructing its lyrics as well as changing the title slightly into "Let's Get Started" to support John's campaign. Also, this composition was then used for an NBA commercial and later on attained great success as it became fans' favorite. To their surprise, the single had brought them to win a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance By A Duo Or Group in 2005.

The group went on to maintain their status as an American prominent music group by releasing their fourth album entitled "Monkey Business" across America on June 7, 2005. "'Monkey Business' is very much about the types of songs we play live," will.i.am explained. "It's about a party. It's layered differently and has energy to it that reflects how we tour - from the beats to the types of instruments we used to how we interact with the audience. It's very much about us and the crowd on this record." Like their previous set, this fourth record also experienced success for it has sold over 295,000 copies in the first week on sale. Its single "Don't Phunk With My Heart" made a wondrous movement by soaring to the 3rd spot of Billboard Hot 100.

More on their accomplishment in music scene, they won Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group at the 33rd Annual American Music Awards, and also brought home Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Band/Duo/Group prize at the same event. Adding to their awards collection, they grabbed Best International Group and Best International Album categories for "Monkey Business" at the 2006 NRJ Music Awards.

In 2009, BEF returned with another studio album titled "The E.N.D. which heavily used Auto-Tune in its songs. Despite its title which indicated the band's final record, will.i.am said that the title is an acronym The Energy Never Dies and confirmed that the effort is not their last one. Prior to the album's release on June 9, one promotional single from the record was released every week, starting from "Boom Boom Pow", "I Gotta Feeling", "Imma Be", "Alive" and "Meet Me Halfway".

"Boom Boom Pow" was the lead single from the record, while "I Gotta Feeling" was the second one. The former track peaked at number one on Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks in a row since being debuted in late April 2009. Meanwhile, the latter one was picked up as a theme song for CBS' 2009 summer marketing campaign to promote the network's fall schedule.

Beside having a new effort, this band also dropped a mini album titled "INVASION OF BOOM BOOM POW - MEGAMIX E.P." in 2009. In it, they will include six remix versions of "Boom Boom Pow", one of which features Kid Cudi.

Discography

2010 : The Beginning
2009 : Monkey Business/Elephunk
2009 : The E.N.D. [Deluxe Edition]
2009 : The E.N.D.
2006 : Renegotiations: The Remixes
2005 : Signed, Sealed, Delivered/Kanal 24
2005 : Monkey Business
2003 : Elephunk

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