A DJ describes watching speakers physically collapse from the crowd energy when ‘I Gotta Feeling’ drops, and that image captures something real about the Black Eyed Peas that a chart position cannot. Their catalog became a kind of gravitational force, pulling people off barstools from London to Rio de Janeiro, and the story of how a group of hip-hop outsiders engineered that pull is far stranger and more deliberate than the music lets on.
The album that changed everything overnight
The turning point arrived in 2003 with Elephunk, the record that introduced Stacey Ann Ferguson, universally known as Fergie, to the group’s lineup. Ferguson had been a child star who had survived a crystal meth addiction, and she brought that particular kind of hard-won openness into the band’s orbit. Rolling Stone was not impressed, writing acidly that since 2003, when the group hired Fergie Ferguson, they appeared to have ‘given up their pursuit of backpack-rapper cred to record dumb songs wearing garish wardrobes.’ The fans did not care. Two British concertgoers captured the sentiment perfectly, explaining they had flown in that morning and were flying out at midnight, having spent their savings to be there for a single night.
Where Is The Love? The Meaning, and the Grandmother Behind It
Elephunk’s first major single, ‘Where Is the Love,’ featured Justin Timberlake, though he was not credited prominently enough for many listeners to notice. The song peaked at number eight on the US Hot 100 but spent six weeks at number one in the UK, where it became the biggest-selling single of 2003. What made it work was timing and range: it sat equally at home on dance stations, hip-hop clubs, and daytime radio, which was nearly impossible to engineer deliberately. The album went on to spawn ‘Shut Up,’ which topped charts in dozens of countries and went platinum in the US, UK, Germany, and most European markets, and ‘Hey Mama,’ which received additional exposure when it appeared in the first silhouette television commercial for the iPod.
Will.i.am, the architect who never stopped studying
Much of what gave the group its unusual durability was Will.i.am’s compulsive attention to where music was heading before it arrived. He and apl.de.ap made a practice of going to underground clubs specifically to hear what younger audiences were moving to, and that groundwork showed. ‘We really did our homework,’ Will.i.am said, reflecting on the Grammy win for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group, which ‘Don’t Funk With My Heart’ earned from the 2005 Monkey Business album. ‘I’m so proud that we didn’t get swallowed by our yesterday’s success.’
Monkey Business debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200, selling over 300,000 copies in its first week and eventually earning triple platinum certification. The tour that followed closed on December 31st, 2006, at Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for more than one million people, the group’s largest concert to date. By 2007, the Black Blue and You World Tour had carried the band to more than 20 countries, including Nigeria, Kazakhstan, and the Philippines, and they found time mid-tour to meet Nelson Mandela.
The E.N.D., released June 9th, 2009, pushed the group further into electro-hop territory. ‘Boom Boom Pow’ held number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for 12 weeks. ‘I Gotta Feeling,’ the second single, then replaced it at the top of the US iTunes chart and eventually set a Billboard Hot 100 record: the longest successive number-one chart run by a duo or group in the chart’s history, when it hit its fifth consecutive week at number one following Boom Boom Pow’s 12-week run. The collaboration with producer David Guetta on that track opened the group to an entirely new dance-music audience. ‘Meet Me Halfway’ followed as the third single, reaching number one in both the UK and Australia, giving the Peas their third chart-topper from the same album in both countries.
The quality nobody gives them credit for
A DJ who plays their catalog regularly put it plainly: ‘I’ve had speakers knocked down, decks jumping, because everybody’s so excited.’ That physical, room-reshaping reaction is not accidental. It is the product of a group that understood, earlier than most, that making a record was only the beginning. They built relationships across film, fashion, and technology, embraced digital distribution before it was standard, and performed live shows that mixed instruments, hip-hop, and aerial staging into something that observers described as impossible to categorize but impossible to ignore. Whether any of it deserves the critical respect it never fully received is a separate question. What the speakers falling over in clubs around the world suggests is that the answer was always beside the point.
Black Eyed Peas Bring the World Together for ‘#WHERESTHELOVE’ and the Answer Is Still Needed
The stage in Tel Aviv, the first time
During the Monkey Business Tour in December 2005, the group opened its European leg in Tel Aviv, Israel. From the stage, the announcement was direct: ‘It’s our first time in Israel, but this is not our last.’
The crowd noise that followed is not on any chart.
