Black Eyed Peas

• 1. Introduction

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  Black Eyed Peas were assembled on the dance floors of Los Angeles in 1988, when two high school students named William James Adams Jr and Allan Pineda Lindo crossed paths at an all-ages venue called Club What?. Within roughly a decade, they had transformed from a hip-hop dance crew into one of the best-selling musical acts of all time, with an estimated 80 million records sold. How did a group that started playing an old Whisky a Go Go club and recording an album that was never released get there? And what happens to a group that reaches the absolute peak of the pop charts, then voluntarily walks away?

• 2. Tribal Nation to Atban Klann

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  William James Adams Jr and Allan Pineda Lindo formed a hip-hop dance and music crew at Club What? they named Tribal Nation. Adams took the name Will 1X; Pineda Lindo became apl.de.ap. Friends filled out the lineup, including Dante Santiago, Mooky Mook, and DJ Motiv8. Actor David Faustino opened an all-ages club called Balistyx in 1991 inside the old Whisky a Go Go, and Tribal Nation performed there. Rapper Eazy-E caught one of those shows and signed the group to Ruthless Records, renaming them Atban Klann.

  A promotional single, "Puddles of H2O", was released in 1994. A full album called Grass Roots was planned for commercial release in early 1995, but the project stalled. Eazy-E died of HIV/AIDS, Mooky Mook left the group, and without a functioning Ruthless Records contract, Dante Santiago also departed. Adams changed his name one more time, to will.i.am, and with apl.de.ap brought in Jaime Gomez, who went by Taboo, along with a singer named Kim Hill. They briefly called themselves the Black Eyed Pods before settling on the name that stuck: the Black Eyed Peas.

  The trio performed with a live band and leaned toward conscious hip-hop at a moment when Los Angeles rap was defined by gangsta sounds. Interscope Records signed them, and their 1998 debut, Behind the Front, earned critical praise. One of its singles, "Joints & Jam", appeared on the Bulworth soundtrack. Singer Sierra Swan guested on the 1998 track "Fallin' Up". Their second album, Bridging the Gap, followed in 2000, featuring the singles "Weekends" with Esthero and "Request + Line" with Macy Gray. Kim Hill stepped away during that album's production but still appeared on two of its tracks and in the video for "Weekends".

• 3. Elephunk and the Fergie Effect

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  In 2002, Stacy Ferguson joined the group after being introduced by Dante Santiago, taking the stage name Fergie and becoming the lead singer. The album they built around her, Elephunk, marked a sharp turn toward polished pop. Rolling Stone acknowledged the shift directly, noting that after the group hired Ferguson and let go of their backpack-rapper ambitions, they had made a kind of spiritual practice of recording futuristic songs, a commitment that extended from their wardrobes to their worldview.

  "Where Is the Love?", featuring Justin Timberlake, became the group's first major hit. It peaked at number 8 on the U.S. Hot 100, but performed even better internationally, spending seven weeks at number one in the United Kingdom and becoming the biggest-selling single of 2003 in that country. In Australia it stayed at number one for six weeks. A later Elephunk single, "Hey Mama", picked up additional exposure when it appeared in the first silhouette television commercial for the iPod in 2003. The fourth single, "Let's Get It Started", won the 2005 Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group and received nominations for Record of the Year and Best Rap Song.

  The group's fourth album, Monkey Business, was recorded through 2004 and released on the 25th of May 2005, with much of the pre-production writing done aboard the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus during their 2004 tour. Its first single, "Don't Phunk with My Heart", reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned a second Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. Monkey Business debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling over 295,000 copies in its first week, and was later certified 3x platinum by the RIAA. Not every song landed without controversy: John Bush of AllMusic called "My Humps" one of the most embarrassing rap performances of the new millennium, though the track still reached number three on the U.S. Hot 100 and number one in Australia.

• 4. 26 Weeks on Top

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  The E.N.D., released on the 3rd of June 2009, carried a title that stood for "The Energy Never Dies". will.i.am credited the Presets' "My People" as inspiration for the album's electronic direction. In its first week the album sold 304,000 copies and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, eventually spending 38 weeks inside the top ten and finishing as the seventh-bestselling album of 2009 in the United States.

  "Boom Boom Pow" arrived on the 30th of March 2009, on iTunes in the U.S. It sold 465,000 downloads in its first week, at that point the third-largest single-week download total ever, and also the largest debut-week download figure ever recorded by a group. The single held number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for twelve consecutive weeks. On the 21st of May, the group released the second single "I Gotta Feeling", which climbed behind "Boom Boom Pow" and eventually overtook it at number one.

  From the 18th of April 2009, when "Boom Boom Pow" first reached number one, through the 10th of October 2009, when "I Gotta Feeling" held the spot for its final week, the Black Eyed Peas sat at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 for 26 consecutive weeks, longer than any other artist to that point. On the 30th of July 2009, Billboard confirmed the record: "I Gotta Feeling" had just completed its fifth consecutive week at number one, on top of the twelve weeks already logged by "Boom Boom Pow". "I Gotta Feeling" also became the first single to sell over one million downloads in the United Kingdom.

  At the 52nd Grammy Awards, held on the 31st of January 2010, the group performed a mash-up of "Imma Be" and "I Gotta Feeling", then won three of their six nominations: Best Pop Vocal Album for The E.N.D., Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Group for "I Gotta Feeling", and Best Short Form Video for "Boom Boom Pow". On the 6th of February 2011, they headlined the Super Bowl XLV halftime show.

• 5. Flash Mobs and Philanthropy

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  On the 8th of September 2009, during The E.N.D. World Tour, the group performed live for Oprah Winfrey's 24th Season Kickoff Party on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. An estimated 21,000 dancers in the streets joined a flash mob to a live performance of "I Gotta Feeling".

  The group's charitable work ran alongside their commercial peak. On the 10th of December 2005, Amnesty International released the Black Eyed Peas' cover of John Lennon's "Power to the People", recorded mostly on the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus, as part of the Make Some Noise campaign for human rights. The song was later included on the 2007 Lennon tribute album Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur. On the 3rd of September 2011, the group performed a concert in Minot, North Dakota to benefit victims of the 2011 Souris River flood, which damaged over 4,000 homes and displaced over 12,000 people. Shortly after, on the 30th of September 2011, they gave a free concert in New York City's Central Park for over 50,000 people; that event raised over $4 million for charity.

  In July 2011, the Black Eyed Peas founded a school for New York teenagers between 13 and 19 years old. The Peapod Adobe Youth Voices academy, opened on the 19th of July 2011 in Manhattan through a collaboration with the Adobe Foundation, gave students access to professional equipment for video production and music. Admission was based on teacher recommendations and the students' own expressions of interest in subjects like camera work, editing, and graphic design. The school operated through a building run by the Urban Arts Partnership, which serves young people from low-income areas.

• 6. Hiatus, Fergie's Exit, and New Direction

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  On the 6th of July 2011, during a concert at Alton Towers in Staffordshire, the Black Eyed Peas announced they would be going on indefinite hiatus. Their final performance of that cycle took place on the 23rd of November 2011, in Miami. They briefly reunited in 2015 for their 20th anniversary, releasing "Awesome" and "Yesterday", neither of which featured Fergie. On the 31st of August 2016, they released "#WHERESTHELOVE", a remake of their 2003 song with all four original members; will.i.am stated that all proceeds would go to his i.am.angel foundation, which funds educational programs and college scholarships in the United States. That recording stands as Fergie's last work with the group.

  On the 9th of January 2018, the group released "Street Livin'", their first single without Fergie. On the 18th of February 2018, will.i.am confirmed her departure in an interview with the Daily Star, adding that she would not appear on the group's seventh album. The following day, Jessica Reynoso, who had been a finalist on The Voice of the Philippines season one as a member of Team Apl.de.ap, joined the group under the stage name J. Rey Soul as a female vocalist and semi-official member.

  Masters of the Sun Vol. 1 was released on the 26th of October 2018, accompanied by a graphic novel the members had been working on. The album failed to chart. The group then signed with Epic Records in 2019 and shifted toward reggaeton and Latin sounds on Translation (2020) and Elevation (2022). J. Rey Soul described the Translation era as very Afrobeat, Latin vibe, dance music. "Ritmo", released on the 11th of October 2019 for the Bad Boys for Life soundtrack, became their 17th Hot 100 entry and their first chart appearance since 2011's "Don't Stop the Party", peaking at number 26.