Speaker 1: What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Brady.
Speaker 2: Yo. Look at Fante Fanti My man, what up on?
Speaker 3: Brother?
Speaker 4: Good to meet you, man, you could to meet you.
Speaker 2: It's an honor to meet you. Brother. No no, I
Speaker 2: mean what you've done. I mean from from slum conversations
Speaker 2: with T three to the Daylight conversations. Bro, your name
Speaker 2: is synonymous, your clue is synonymous, and I always have
Speaker 2: to show my salute from my ultimate respect to the
Speaker 2: pioneers like yourself.
Speaker 4: Oh man, that's love, brother, Thank you so much. I
Speaker 4: received that.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 4: Likewise, thank you for sure.
Speaker 2: Bro. You just don't know how much your music means
Speaker 2: to all of us man, like you know, us being
Speaker 2: sons of Dayla and tribe and just coming from that
Speaker 2: cloth groups like yourselves like you Slum Village, you guys.
Speaker 2: You guys definitely continues at the time, and I'm proud
Speaker 2: of everything that you've done and even transition into this
Speaker 2: new medium. It's really dope.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much, man.
Speaker 3: So I guess we just started the episode already.
Speaker 1: Flowers started with flowers.
Speaker 3: We started with flowers.
Speaker 2: I start with humility, brothers, because you guys, you guys
Speaker 2: are always giving people flowers. Now it's time for you
Speaker 2: to know what you mean to hip hop culture and
Speaker 2: to hip hop kids like myself that started as be
Speaker 2: boys breakdancers on the block just wanted to put on
Speaker 2: for our communities, h you know, our ancestry. Unfortunately, hip
Speaker 2: hop was the conduit. You know, breaking was the first
Speaker 2: thing I got into. Then I got into graffiti mcm
Speaker 2: I met my tribe where I am an apple the
Speaker 2: app and we became uh, you know, we became brothers
Speaker 2: and became black eyed peas. So when I see folks
Speaker 2: like yourself, like a mirror and Fonte who set the
Speaker 2: tone for hip hop culture, I always got to give
Speaker 2: you your flowers.
Speaker 4: That's love, brother, Thanks, thank you.
Speaker 3: Wow. This is the first time where the guest actually
Speaker 3: winds up entering the show. All right, ladies and gentlemen
Speaker 3: of the internets, welcome to another exciting episode of course
Speaker 3: Live Supreme. I'm your host, quest Love. We have fun
Speaker 3: Tickeolo in the house. Brother. How's it going all right?
Speaker 5: Man, I'm cool, just resting and uh yeah, getting ready
Speaker 5: for Thursday and Friday of this week. This will it'll
Speaker 5: have been passed by the time it's air, But yeah,
Speaker 5: we Boston and New York this week, So I'm just
Speaker 5: resting getting ready.
Speaker 3: Man, is this a major tour or is this?
Speaker 5: Uh nah, I mean it's not. Well, it's not major
Speaker 5: in the sense of it's a lot of dates. We
Speaker 5: just did San Diego and Orange County last weekend and
Speaker 5: then this week is Boston and New York.
Speaker 4: June we played Roots Picnic and yeah, it's fuck this.
Speaker 4: I'm back in the outs like.
Speaker 3: Really, oh yeah, wait, wait, I gotta ask, do you
Speaker 3: do you feel like you? You? I know that of
Speaker 3: all of us in this on this show that you,
Speaker 3: more than anyone, has been extremely like almost it's Fort
Speaker 3: Knox level protective of not catching the VID. And you
Speaker 3: went out and then you you, you got caught out there.
Speaker 5: I got that my first time leaving the house, my
Speaker 5: first run in three years, our first LB run. You
Speaker 5: know that we went and we did San Diego in
Speaker 5: Orange County and.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I got hit.
Speaker 3: Well now that you got I mean, was it like
Speaker 3: for me it was like just having a cold. Was
Speaker 3: it that way for you or was it like a
Speaker 3: little worried there.
Speaker 5: It was like having a cold, But for me it
Speaker 5: was more so it wasn't necessarily just having a cold.
Speaker 5: It was just participating in the delusion that this ship
Speaker 5: is gone right, and like that's the part that I
Speaker 5: just refused to do anymore. Like it's not in terms
Speaker 5: of what touring is now, Touring pre COVID and turn
Speaker 5: post COVID is just very different. And it's like now,
Speaker 5: particularly for artists like us, I mean, where you're pretty
Speaker 5: much doing everything like motors don't really do shit no
Speaker 5: or so for me, I just looked at from the
Speaker 5: standpoint of like, okay, I gotta play promoter, producer, performer,
Speaker 5: curator and the fucking CDC.
Speaker 4: Fuck this, dude, No, damn, I'm good, I'm paid Bill.
Speaker 1: I went to get cigarettes again. I went to Australia.
Speaker 1: I'm back.
Speaker 3: You went to Australia.
Speaker 1: I was in Australia for a few weeks to put
Speaker 1: up a show. Now it's up. Now the show. Uh
Speaker 1: it's called and Juliette. You haven't seen it yet, but
Speaker 1: you've threatened to a few times. It's on Broadway. Now
Speaker 1: it's in Australia.
Speaker 3: Wait, you guys are making it worldwide already.
Speaker 1: Global domination, my friend, Global domination. That's how we do well.
Speaker 3: Dan with the songbook, I would suspect that Anne Juliet
Speaker 3: will probably be a five to ten year staple.
Speaker 1: I hope, so that'd be nice for my kids college
Speaker 1: tuition and all.
Speaker 3: That's what's up, man, That's what's up, sugar, Steve Esteemed
Speaker 3: jazz labelhead. What's going going on?
Speaker 6: How are you? Everything's okay? I we finished three records
Speaker 6: this past weekend. For the one of them yours. Yes,
Speaker 6: we finished mixing David Mury Ray Angry and Questlova, a
Speaker 6: four platter box set that you can look forward to see.
Speaker 3: She ends up making my second jazz offering in my life.
Speaker 1: We're calling the Philadelphi Experiment the first one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the first one, okay, so I don't necessarily
Speaker 3: called jazz, but you know this, this one was actually
Speaker 3: probably I have more fun doing this one. I think
Speaker 3: there's a lot of treats in there. So you're saying
Speaker 3: it's a box set that we're.
Speaker 6: Releasing, Yeah, four platters and a seven echine side and
Speaker 6: it's going to be coming later this year.
Speaker 3: Have son shiit? I might have to line of news
Speaker 3: for that. Have we lost our queen today?
Speaker 6: Yeah, she's on stage doing something something for.
Speaker 3: Jill Oh okay, he came and set us up. That's nice,
Speaker 3: ladies and gentlemen. I will say that our distinguished guest
Speaker 3: today has checked many a bucket list fulfillment since having
Speaker 3: entered our lives some twenty five plus years ago, as
Speaker 3: one third or one fourth how you want to look
Speaker 3: at it, as a one third member of a legendary,
Speaker 3: legendary hip hop outfit, having created over nine studio albums
Speaker 3: that have worldwide sales over thirty three million.
Speaker 2: Yo.
Speaker 3: Just looking at the stats made me feel like I'm
Speaker 3: not working hard enough. Of ninety seven platinum awards, I
Speaker 3: was way too lazy to keep total of the gold awards,
Speaker 3: but I stopped counting after one hundred, over twelve major
Speaker 3: world tours, over sixty sixty various awards from the MAAS
Speaker 3: to BT, Soul Train Awards, Latin Awards for Bill Ward
Speaker 3: for even the NAACP Awards, six Grammys, six Grammys, countless
Speaker 3: MTV awards. But you know, it's not even about the quantity,
Speaker 3: ladies and gentlemen's. It's to me the achievements are cool.
Speaker 3: But you know, in this episode, we get to know.
Speaker 3: We aim to get to know the person behind the
Speaker 3: achievements and get to know them, and you know, many
Speaker 3: of us were pretty much a majority of us were
Speaker 3: unaware of his of his advocacy work. Now, the thing is,
Speaker 3: when I start talking, I feel like I expose myself
Speaker 3: when I try to talk sports, Shut up Steve, or comics,
Speaker 3: Shut up Steve. Okay, yes, I'm the guy that says
Speaker 3: the sports, the comics. But I you know, I'll say
Speaker 3: that with you know, having created indigenous characters and it's
Speaker 3: sort of expanding the world of Marvel is a wonderful thing,
Speaker 3: be it the Red Wolf series or Deadly Neighborhood Spider Man.
Speaker 3: He's also an author of a kid's book about identity,
Speaker 3: and most importantly, he's been extremely, extremely vocal in his
Speaker 3: memoirs and his interviews being an advocate for surviving cancer
Speaker 3: and using this platform to connect and encourage others that
Speaker 3: share that same experience. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: you know, I will say that he's just an overall
Speaker 3: a shining light and a really cool dude. And please
Speaker 3: welcome to QLs MC. Author, political activists, actor, dancer, singer, songwriter, producer,
Speaker 3: and yes, survivor. Jamie Gomez aka Taboo of the Black
Speaker 3: Eyed Peace, Welcome.
Speaker 2: To thank you for a lot. Yo. First of all,
Speaker 2: I gotta acknowledge Steve for being a comic head. Steve,
Speaker 2: salutes to you brother, the fact that Emir passed it
Speaker 2: on to you and said sports comics not my thing.
Speaker 2: It's all good, all good at storytelling. So salute to you, Steve.
Speaker 2: And then Bill, you had me at two daughters. No, seriously,
Speaker 2: when you said I'm a father of two daughters, I
Speaker 2: would say my greatest gift is being a husband and
Speaker 2: a father, because there's no motives behind that other than love.
Speaker 2: And I'm not trying to be Kumbaya a Hallmark card,
Speaker 2: but this is real. This is who I am. All
Speaker 2: the accolades and all the stuff that's monetary and all
Speaker 2: that stuff when you're battling cancer ladies and gentlemen, that
Speaker 2: shits so irrelevant. That shit is so irrelevant because you're like, YO,
Speaker 2: just give me one more chance to be with my kids,
Speaker 2: Let me hug my wife one more time, let me
Speaker 2: get on that stage one more time with my crew
Speaker 2: so that I can perform and bring healing to people
Speaker 2: that need it. So I just wanted to get that
Speaker 2: and be transparent and candidate about how much love I
Speaker 2: have for life, beyond any music, beyond any career. I'm
Speaker 2: enjoying just being able to have opportunities like this to
Speaker 2: give my testimony and meet people like you, Bill, and
Speaker 2: meet people like you Steve, who you know I've met Emir.
Speaker 2: I'm a fan of Fante. I know what they bring
Speaker 2: to culture. I love them for what they bring and
Speaker 2: who they are as human beings. But to be able
Speaker 2: to see the team that brings us all together and
Speaker 2: give you your flowers and salute you for what you
Speaker 2: make this whole team happen. You guys got to know
Speaker 2: that too, So I just wanted to kind of put
Speaker 2: that out there. I'm all about that, man. I'm telling you,
Speaker 2: humility is freaking key. A lot of people get caught
Speaker 2: up in their own ship and I'm not trying to
Speaker 2: do that. Brother. I surrendered evil a long time ago.
Speaker 4: And so how old are your daughters? Man?
Speaker 2: Well, I have one daughter. Guess what, I have three
Speaker 2: boys and one daughter. My daughter was born as a
Speaker 2: miracle baby after my doctor said you're not gonna be
Speaker 2: able to have any more children because you have stage
Speaker 2: two testicular cancer. So the chemotherapy is going to be
Speaker 2: so aggressive, intense and it's gonna break down everything that's
Speaker 2: good in your body to kill that one thing that's
Speaker 2: bad in your body. And so he said, unfortunately, you're
Speaker 2: probably not gonna have any more children. So my daughter,
Speaker 2: my one and only daughter, jet Juliana, was born as
Speaker 2: a miracle baby. And so when you said that, Bill,
Speaker 2: I was like, Yo, There's only been one other person
Speaker 2: that has inspired me like that, and that was Kobe Bryant.
Speaker 2: I had a chance to build my brother Kobe, and
Speaker 2: his love and his appreciation for being such an amazing
Speaker 2: girl dad was something that sparked me to become a
Speaker 2: writer of books and comics and be a storyteller and
Speaker 2: really focus on my kids and kids around the world,
Speaker 2: bring inclusion, bring a mosaic of cultures that's represented through storytelling,
Speaker 2: and do it in a way where it's fun. There's music,
Speaker 2: there's art, there's culture, and it's done very genuine and authentic.
Speaker 3: So let me ask you for your life, when was
Speaker 3: the paradigm shift in which you had this awakening and
Speaker 3: this zest for life.
Speaker 2: For people that remember the earlier work of the Black
Speaker 2: Eyed Peas, I was I looked very different back then
Speaker 2: because I wasn't taking care of myself. I looked more depleted.
Speaker 2: My cheek bone structure was very profound. I had long hair.
Speaker 2: I was like weighed like one hundred and ten pounds
Speaker 2: because I was using and abusing, and I'm very candid
Speaker 2: about it. When I became sobers, when I found that
Speaker 2: first moment of clarity for myself, and I only speak
Speaker 2: for me, because I was going crazy, bro. I was
Speaker 2: living the rock star lifestyle. I went from sleeping on
Speaker 2: mom's couch to having my first you know whatever success
Speaker 2: with whereas the Love, and that was in two thousand
Speaker 2: and three. So from twenty from nineteen ninety five when
Speaker 2: we started Black Eyed Peas to two thousand and three,
Speaker 2: I was building this like bravado and this energy, you
Speaker 2: know hip hop, Grab your crotch all that shit. I'm
Speaker 2: an MC, I'm a b boy. I'm gonna battle you.
Speaker 2: Yah yah yah yah. Right, your building is bravado. Your
Speaker 2: confidence sometimes turns into ego, especially when you're going crazy
Speaker 2: with over indulging. And so I started over indulging, started
Speaker 2: getting money over indulging, and I wrote a book about it,
Speaker 2: another book before I wrote the kids book about identity,
Speaker 2: because I wanted to help people that have addiction or
Speaker 2: going through addition. And in two thousand and seven, March
Speaker 2: twenty seventh, that was the day that I changed my
Speaker 2: whole perspective because I wanted to live for my kids.
Speaker 2: I was living dangerously, I was living recklessly, and you know,
Speaker 2: I had a surrender. That was my first moment of
Speaker 2: surrendering because my ego was out of control and it
Speaker 2: kept saying You're the shit, nobody could fuck with you,
Speaker 2: You're unstoppable, You're part of this mega crew, YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 2: But in actuality, I was just a human that was
Speaker 2: trying to fill voids with alcoholism and drug use. And
Speaker 2: I'm candid about it because I want people to take
Speaker 2: inspiration from this, even if they're like, wow, we didn't
Speaker 2: know that you were going to that. Well, I never
Speaker 2: really publicly talked about it. I actually did the work
Speaker 2: and the due diligence and the ways to be able
Speaker 2: to get back and to be of service. And so
Speaker 2: from that point on, my first step of moment of
Speaker 2: clarity was sobriety. So now going on sixteen years of
Speaker 2: being removed from that time period, in twenty fourteen, I
Speaker 2: get hit with cancer and as man we don't talk
Speaker 2: about that shit ever. I ain't gotta get tested. Oh man,
Speaker 2: my testicles. You mean to touch my nuts? I ain't
Speaker 2: got what do you mean go to the doctor. Now,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go on tour. I got tours. I got
Speaker 2: shows to do, right, So that was the mentality. I
Speaker 2: got shows to do. So I had this back pain
Speaker 2: and my right testicle is hurting, but I was like, ah,
Speaker 2: that's cool, it's all right, it's wearing terbit of the road.
Speaker 2: And so in twenty fourteen was the year that it
Speaker 2: all came crashing down for me and I got diagnosed
Speaker 2: with stage two testicular cancer, which it went to my
Speaker 2: two lift notes in my spine, and I did have
Speaker 2: to go into aggressive chemotherapy six days a week, excuse me,
Speaker 2: six hours a day, five days a week, many many long,
Speaker 2: strenuous hours of torture and trauma, mental and physical.
Speaker 3: I've only probably really been close to one person that
Speaker 3: had to go through testing and that stuff for leukemia.
Speaker 3: Shout out to Rich Nichols, who even then, like Rich
Speaker 3: was such a hard ass cynic that he didn't want
Speaker 3: to burden us with the human side of what it
Speaker 3: felt like. But what what does what is the process
Speaker 3: of going through that level of chemo where six hours
Speaker 3: every day? What is what is the process?
Speaker 2: It's different for every type of cancer. You know, for
Speaker 2: the Kids Unit, which is the cancer treatment center for
Speaker 2: kids McDonald's Center in Los Angeles, they have different varieties
Speaker 2: of chemotherapy that some of them are aggressive, but also
Speaker 2: you don't want to you don't want to bring trauma
Speaker 2: to the kids so much that it causes permanent damage.
Speaker 2: So with me, it was like, I'm going to go
Speaker 2: aggressive because I want to be back on stage. So
Speaker 2: I opted to do aggressive chemo because it was spreading
Speaker 2: at such a rapid rate that if I didn't do
Speaker 2: it the way that I did it with five hours
Speaker 2: a day, I mean, excuse me, six hours a day,
Speaker 2: five days a week, then it would have prolonged the
Speaker 2: process and I probably it probably would have went from
Speaker 2: my spine, my lungs, and then my brain and I
Speaker 2: would have died. And that that was how the doctor
Speaker 2: explained it to me.
Speaker 3: How long from the moment that you found that you
Speaker 3: had it, how long did it take you to acknowledge it?
Speaker 3: And like, all right, let me start treatment.
Speaker 2: From I got checked in on a Thursday. I was
Speaker 2: doing chemo on that Monday. So I had surgery Friday
Speaker 2: to get my right testicle removed.
Speaker 3: So as you were concerned, you were just like, damn, man,
Speaker 3: like my back is killing me. I can't dance like
Speaker 3: I used to. Let me go get this fix, and
Speaker 3: then that's how you found out you had cancer or.
Speaker 2: Well, it was like I had pain in my back
Speaker 2: and it was more about like being able to pick
Speaker 2: my kids up more than dancing. Okay, it was something
Speaker 2: very innate to my life, Like the dancing thing is
Speaker 2: only like an hour or two hours when I'm on stage, right,
Speaker 2: I live a daily life of being a father, and
Speaker 2: so something as simple as like trying to bend over
Speaker 2: to pick on my kid, I had this sharp pain
Speaker 2: in my back. So I was like, yo, there's something
Speaker 2: wrong with me. I just don't know what it is.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's wear and tear of being on tour. Tell
Speaker 2: my wife. My wife says, hey, if this continues to
Speaker 2: get worse, you need to go to the er. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: at twelve midnight it got worse, so I drove. I
Speaker 2: don't know how I did it. I got in my car,
Speaker 2: drove to the er, and I went straight into getting
Speaker 2: MIRI cat scans CT scans, and by seven am they
Speaker 2: told me I was diagnosed with cancer. They didn't tell
Speaker 2: me what type of cancer. They just said, we found
Speaker 2: a mass which is for centimeters wide four centimeters long
Speaker 2: like a tennis ball, and it's in your spine and
Speaker 2: it came from your right testicle.
Speaker 1: In your family? Is it hereditary?
Speaker 2: That was the first one, brother.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So so let me let me just give you guys,
Speaker 2: because I know this is a fun show and everybody.
Speaker 3: No no, this is a human no no, no, no,
Speaker 3: a human show and there's a human show. Normally I
Speaker 3: just start with your creative life, but you went there,
Speaker 3: so I want to know this for me.
Speaker 2: So so so I just wanted to give you guys
Speaker 2: the ultimate connection to me as a human being, because
Speaker 2: I love what you guys do with the show, how
Speaker 2: you guys take journeys of like the dark side the light,
Speaker 2: the career of triumphs. But this one, for me was
Speaker 2: the thing that kind of shape and molded who I
Speaker 2: am today as a father, as a husband, as a storyteller,
Speaker 2: as a creative because I probably wouldn't have understood being
Speaker 2: a voice to indigenous communities if I didn't go through
Speaker 2: this trauma. Because after I beat this horrible disease, I
Speaker 2: said to myself, what's my higher purpose beyond being an entertainertainer,
Speaker 2: beyond doing music? Wait a minute, I think I gotta
Speaker 2: go and be of service. So I went to Standing Rock.
Speaker 2: Standing Rock was a they say it's a protest, we
Speaker 2: call it a protection of sacred land. At that time,
Speaker 2: which is any rocks to tribe. They were trying to
Speaker 2: build the oil pipeline that would eventually bring oil into
Speaker 2: the water drinking water of the tribal community around.
Speaker 3: That you were part of those protesters that I went.
Speaker 2: I went there as Jimmy Gomez, an activist, as a
Speaker 2: Native kid that just wanted to stand in solidarity. It
Speaker 2: wasn't about Black Eyed Peas. It's just me. I took
Speaker 2: my oldest son, Josh, and we were there as Native
Speaker 2: activists giving back to the community, trying to just be
Speaker 2: of service. And then I figured out how I can
Speaker 2: be a voice and really use this huge megaphone that
Speaker 2: is Black Eyed Peas to bring more eyeballs and more
Speaker 2: visibility to tribal issue, whether we're talking about you know, pipelines,
Speaker 2: or we're talking about indigenous peoples be in Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: we're talking about the Native Nations March or bringing more
Speaker 2: conversation in mainstream media that has an indigenous lens that's
Speaker 2: very genuine and authentic and not stereotypical like we've seen
Speaker 2: in the past. And so that was kind of like
Speaker 2: my AHA moment to be that guy. He's like, Yo,
Speaker 2: Black Eyed Peas, Yo, Will's all about technology, Apple's all
Speaker 2: about the Philippines. Yo, I'm going to be about this.
Speaker 2: I'm going to activate this amazing opportunity to inspire the
Speaker 2: youth in tribal communities, in the Latino community because I'm
Speaker 2: Mexican as well. Why don't I use this energy that
Speaker 2: I've been putting on stage for so many years and
Speaker 2: now bring light to the fight against cancer, advocating for
Speaker 2: indigenous communities and actually do something to bring light and
Speaker 2: hope to the people.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was going to say that. In doing research
Speaker 3: for your story, and you know, having just turned fifty
Speaker 3: two two months ago, I suddenly asked myself a question.
Speaker 3: I'm like, wait a minute, I think when you turn
Speaker 3: fifty you're supposed to start getting tests to see you know,
Speaker 3: because I'm one of those people, you know, I have
Speaker 3: been living with like stage two lymphedema for about yeah,
Speaker 3: like since like ninety eight, like for twenty five years.
Speaker 2: With you about something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I noticed that.
Speaker 2: I noticed that about you because I saw the fluctuating
Speaker 2: of Europe. Yeah, and for exactly a friend from Afar
Speaker 2: seeing you at certain events, I'd be like, yo, you know,
Speaker 2: just going through my struggles in my illness. Same thing
Speaker 2: that happened with Dave Rest in peace for boy, I
Speaker 2: had that same conversation and it was so candid and
Speaker 2: it was so on a human level that he inspired
Speaker 2: me more than any day I saw track or any
Speaker 2: song or any message or any lyrics because we bonded
Speaker 2: as brothers. And so you know, I noticed that about you,
Speaker 2: and I gotta say, man, like you without even knowing you,
Speaker 2: you are one of those warriors that have inspired me too.
Speaker 3: Thank you, man, thank you. You know at the time,
Speaker 3: I just ignored it and I never heard the term limpidema.
Speaker 3: I'm just like, oh damn, I got fat, Like suddenly,
Speaker 3: I gained seventeen pounds overnight, Like how has that happened?
Speaker 3: And I didn't realize, like, you know, every day I
Speaker 3: have massive swelling and like in different limbs or whatnot,
Speaker 3: just every day. It was sort of like a roulette.
Speaker 3: Change of a roulette will result of all, right, what's
Speaker 3: going to be affected today? Oh, my arm's okay, great.
Speaker 3: That's why I asked you, like from the time you
Speaker 3: were diagnosed to the time that you immediately went to
Speaker 3: get it checked out, Like it took me nine years,
Speaker 3: nine years to finally and it's only because a mistake,
Speaker 3: like I was changed for a video. My manager saw
Speaker 3: me and like, what the fuck happened to your legs, amir?
Speaker 3: And then like he rushed me to the hospital. So
Speaker 3: you know, and I know I'm at that age now
Speaker 3: where every my mental health and my physical health is
Speaker 3: like paramount, and so like I took my first and
Speaker 3: I had a fear. You know, sometimes ignorance is bliss
Speaker 3: sometimes with people, and I had a general fear like
Speaker 3: kept putting it off. Okay, when I turned fifty one,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna get the testament. Get the testament, dude, my
Speaker 3: cancer test and all that stuff. So I definitely knew
Speaker 3: that before we started this interview. I didn't want to
Speaker 3: have to face you and been like hiding, like damn,
Speaker 3: I've been putting this off for two you so I
Speaker 3: finally got I did my test like a week and
Speaker 3: a half ago, so you know, I'm good, clean bill
Speaker 3: of health. But yeah, I just but I do know
Speaker 3: that because of our unwillingness to catch it earlier or
Speaker 3: that sort of thing, or to even find out, we'd
Speaker 3: rather just live and bliss and then it's too late
Speaker 3: and your body starts talking to you and then you
Speaker 3: have that that pain. So but yeah, I will say that.
Speaker 3: In doing research and seeing your story, then I guess
Speaker 3: that kind of pushed me over the ledge, like all right, man,
Speaker 3: just start doing your test, bro, get this together.
Speaker 2: So well, we need we need more heroes without capes
Speaker 2: in our communities that activate just you know, health is wealth, man.
Speaker 2: And I learned that the hard way. I'm not a preacher.
Speaker 2: I will never preach a health and wellness, but I
Speaker 2: will shine light on it and be like, yo, we
Speaker 2: need that more hip hop community. I see a lot
Speaker 2: of our pioneers that are not taking care of themselves.
Speaker 2: I'm like, yo, you know what I'm saying. And I'm
Speaker 2: a fan of these pioneers, and some of them just
Speaker 2: you know, and it's sad because with a little bit
Speaker 2: of prevention, with a little bit of a conversation and
Speaker 2: communication which can help bring that light. Like that's something
Speaker 2: that you know, I would like to do that for communities,
Speaker 2: just like just like what Lance Armstrong did. And I
Speaker 2: know the whole scandal was whacking. It just ended up
Speaker 2: like bullshit, right, But if I can be that conduit
Speaker 2: of hope with my experience so that folks don't have
Speaker 2: to go through it and can prevent it, just like
Speaker 2: what you said, Amir, You're like, oh, I saw your
Speaker 2: story and I'm like, fuck, okay, it's fifty one. Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do it right. Maybe it with a little
Speaker 2: nudge that you didn't even expect it. Maybe because you
Speaker 2: saw what I went through, you're like, you know what,
Speaker 2: all right, let me go get checked.
Speaker 3: Definitely in a nudge. It is the nudge that finally
Speaker 3: made me call my doctor and been like all right,
Speaker 3: I'm coming in. Let mean you know, so I want
Speaker 3: to credit you with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, It's a conversation that I think is healthy
Speaker 2: to have. It's holistic. It's a way that we can
Speaker 2: we can bring something that that you're trying to support
Speaker 2: and nurture. The idea of just wanting to see your
Speaker 2: people succeed and not only music or art, but also
Speaker 2: in taking care of themselves.
Speaker 3: Now I'm really going to start style. Where were you born?
Speaker 2: I was born in East Los Angeles, Ball Heights, California.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, what's your what's you know for you? What's
Speaker 3: your memories of of what your childhood was?
Speaker 2: My grandmother, my grandmother was a beautiful Native woman from Jerome, Arizona.
Speaker 2: She represented her roots to the to the t. She
Speaker 2: was all about being of service, sometimes to her own detriment,
Speaker 2: her own health, which taught me a lot about like, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna help, but I'm not gonna put my health
Speaker 2: before anybody else. She was all about the arts and
Speaker 2: music and dancing. It goes hand in hand with our ancestry.
Speaker 2: You know, we use dancing as a way of prayer healing.
Speaker 2: If you look at it old powout style dancers, a
Speaker 2: lot of it is just stories that are being told
Speaker 2: through their their style and their expression, and they use
Speaker 2: that as a form of healing in prayer and so
Speaker 2: growing up, my grandmother kind of still that that dancing
Speaker 2: performing mentality at five years old, and I would be
Speaker 2: dancing to like, you know, craft work and African Bombarda,
Speaker 2: and you know, I got into craft work because of
Speaker 2: African Bambada and Soul Solid and force. I started understanding
Speaker 2: studying where that whole electronic style came from. And then
Speaker 2: after that I saw, you know, when we saw Breaking
Speaker 2: and you saw what's his name doing the frigging, so
Speaker 2: you're like, yoh, what's that? Oh wait, that's craft work.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute. So I started doing a deep dive
Speaker 2: into like not just hip hop culture, but also where
Speaker 2: it comes from, where that that electronic vibe came from. So,
Speaker 2: you know, and and growing up, I started really sharpening
Speaker 2: my swords as a B boy breaking being inspired by
Speaker 2: breakers like Crazy Legs and the rock Steady Crew from
Speaker 2: from New York, but also a lot of dancers from
Speaker 2: from the West Coast like Popping Pete, Bugaloo, Shrimp, Jeffrey
Speaker 2: Daniels who was part of Schlamar. He was filling it,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, Like he was ill with it.
Speaker 2: He taught Mike MJ a lot of the stuff. But
Speaker 2: also like Leg one, Leg two MC Lights Dancers, Mission
Speaker 2: Impossible Special Eds dancers, you know, kid and play to
Speaker 2: the scheme team which is Divine Stylers dancers. So brothers
Speaker 2: that was Deaf Jeff's dancers. Yeah, the far side, you know,
Speaker 2: and I mean the mop tops from a Buddhist stretch
Speaker 2: from from New York. Like, I had such an innate
Speaker 2: love for for freestyle dance, and then it got into housing.
Speaker 2: Once housing came in, I was like, Yo, what's this
Speaker 2: Because when I heard the younger brother said, say, girl,
Speaker 2: our house you I was like housing. And I started
Speaker 2: doing research on like soho and hot hot music, hot music,
Speaker 2: hot from Doom Doom Do. I was like, Yo, what's
Speaker 2: that style? So I started seeing these different styles Herb
Speaker 2: Alpert North on South Street, watching those videos and really
Speaker 2: immersing myself in the art fulm a dance. And then
Speaker 2: I started studying the great Nicholas Brothers, James Brown, Sammy Davis,
Speaker 2: Bob Fosse, all these amazing dancers that came from from
Speaker 2: the past, and I started incorporating these styles and wanted
Speaker 2: to to bring this this hip hop clash of like
Speaker 2: all these unique frequencies of movement. And so that was
Speaker 2: my upbringing. Man, That's what I That's what I remember.
Speaker 2: This is before me even meeting Will and Apple, before
Speaker 2: we even became black Eyed peas. I started a group
Speaker 2: called Divine Tribal Brothers, and of course who were sons
Speaker 2: of tribe and we loved the Jungle Brothers, So Tribal
Speaker 2: Brothers right right, Well, Will and Apple were tribal nation
Speaker 2: because Zulu nation and try, you know, try call quest.
Speaker 2: So eventually we became a crew and the name of
Speaker 2: our crew was Grassroots and we were trying to do
Speaker 2: like the Native Tongues in the West Coast because we
Speaker 2: were so inspired by the Native tunks.
Speaker 4: Wasn't just your grandmother? Was it mom and dad in
Speaker 4: the picture? Like who was it?
Speaker 2: My mom was in the picture, but you know she
Speaker 2: was she was born in East La. Very typical mom
Speaker 2: from from East La. She she was she didn't see
Speaker 2: it like my grandmother saw it. She knew. She's like,
Speaker 2: you get on the stage and you give the best
Speaker 2: version of yourself and don't ever stop fighting when you're
Speaker 2: on that stage. Right, So that b boy mentality, that killer,
Speaker 2: that apex predator mentality, battle came from my grandmother's will
Speaker 2: and her energy. Like yeah, I love Michael Jordan and
Speaker 2: you know, Magic Johnson and all these sports figures and
Speaker 2: Bruce Lee. It was a big, huge, inspiration. I love
Speaker 2: Kumfort movies, Marsha black Belt Theater, loved Billy Jack. You know,
Speaker 2: I love watching those old school eighties movies too. But
Speaker 2: my grandmother was my superhero, and that's I think that's
Speaker 2: why I kind of really got into storytelling and being
Speaker 2: a superhero advocate because my grandmother was my hero.
Speaker 4: Without a kid.
Speaker 3: You mention hot music by Soho. Just found out that
Speaker 3: Soho was basically are you are you? You remember Pal Joey? Absolutely?
Speaker 3: I did not know so Pal Joey, who was kind
Speaker 3: of an engineer for karas One, So I guess around
Speaker 3: the time when they're making Sex and Violence. I think
Speaker 3: d Nice told me the story that basically all those
Speaker 3: patches belonged to d Nice and karas One, like that's
Speaker 3: how he made hop music. But Pal Joey was making
Speaker 3: like house records on the side, just you know, for
Speaker 3: extra cash and whatnot. So wow, and did not know it.
Speaker 2: That's kind of like how we looked at when we
Speaker 2: when we started getting that frequency of international ed M
Speaker 2: electronic music around the world, whether it was Justice or
Speaker 2: the the you know, uh, David Ghetto were traveled the
Speaker 2: world and we're like, yo, remember that era of like
Speaker 2: Girl a House, Hugh and the technotronic clump up the
Speaker 2: gym Ya remember remember so Hot hop me. We started
Speaker 2: talking about how we can connect and bring whatever was
Speaker 2: happening around the world and bring that same frequency that
Speaker 2: Jungle Brothers was doing when they did Grow a House,
Speaker 2: but just doing the Black Eyed Peace stuff and utilizing
Speaker 2: those inspirations and those sounds and those frequencies that were
Speaker 2: electronic that were popping in around the world that in
Speaker 2: turn became the Boom Boom Pals and the I Gotta
Speaker 2: Feelings and those big records that we did in two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight to twenty eleven, and so all we
Speaker 2: did was just regurgitate the inspiration that came from Jungle
Speaker 2: Brothers and those folks that were transitioning into that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, electro music, Yeah, electual music.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: When I talk to anyone from LA that's a dancer,
Speaker 3: the first thing they always tell me is that, you know,
Speaker 3: it wasn't Vogan. It's called whacking. There's a whacking culture.
Speaker 3: Whacking culture whacking like what was I guess from outside
Speaker 3: of his standpoint, I mean, I'm a DJ, but I
Speaker 3: don't really get many opportunities to do like house parties
Speaker 3: like on frequently, maybe like four or five times a
Speaker 3: year some club will hire me to do a house
Speaker 3: set or whatever. But you know, were you at all
Speaker 3: part of the whacking community like those?
Speaker 2: It was a pretty tight niche. We were part of
Speaker 2: the freestyle that Adrian Young's you know Adrian Young before
Speaker 2: he became a producer. Wait, yeah, before Adrian Young became
Speaker 2: a producer with at least Shahid mohamad Yo. This dude
Speaker 2: was an incredible dancer, bro Like, he had the dreadlocks.
Speaker 2: My man, Adrian Young was one of the illest dancers,
Speaker 2: and we all came up together. You know. So shout
Speaker 2: out to Adrian Young for his transition into becoming an
Speaker 2: amazing cultivist of the culture. He just he's just such
Speaker 2: a big inspiration because he did start as a dancer.
Speaker 2: He started as a freestyle dancer with us.
Speaker 3: So were you part of the good life community at
Speaker 3: all or was that like sort of before we.
Speaker 2: Had our own thing. We had our own thing called
Speaker 2: Peace and Justice Center, which Black Eyed Peas spawned out
Speaker 2: of it. We also had punpkind Ahead. We used to
Speaker 2: come out of there. Not a lot of main artists
Speaker 2: came out of there, but we had love and appreciation
Speaker 2: for the abstract routes and the fellowships and you know
Speaker 2: Medusa and all those folks. Yeah, Medusa. But we weren't
Speaker 2: that part of La. We weren't in Lamert Park. We
Speaker 2: were in East La Glendale, Sangabo Valley, Los Feeliss Like
Speaker 2: that was our world. That was our stomping grounds. And
Speaker 2: we were more in the Filipino community because of Apple Apples.
Speaker 2: He was the guy that will bring us to the
Speaker 2: Hi Filipino parties. So that's kind of where we we
Speaker 2: were sharpened our swords and battle other crews.
Speaker 3: My idea of battling really just stems from watching Beech
Speaker 3: Street and that sort of thing. But you know, when
Speaker 3: you go to a function, like take us back to
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety or ninety one, if you're going to a function,
Speaker 3: are you going there to flex that? I will dance
Speaker 3: out dance to all of you, like how does a
Speaker 3: battle start?
Speaker 2: It's more of a spiritual warfare, bro, more than our
Speaker 2: bat out dance you. It's more like when you know,
Speaker 2: when you see the X Men battleling Scratch Pickles, or
Speaker 2: you see the beat junkies battling these other DJs and
Speaker 2: they're going there, they're killing. It's the same mentality for
Speaker 2: for dancers or b boys or freestyle dancers, like we
Speaker 2: are in there as apex predators to see who's got
Speaker 2: the illest shit, How dope are you repid? What's the
Speaker 2: what's the dopest moves that you're bringing to be able
Speaker 2: to show that you're representing your crew. And we, you know,
Speaker 2: we watch movies like rac Shop by the mop Tops
Speaker 2: and and Wild Style, and you know, we learned from
Speaker 2: the greats watching the battles between rock Steady and the
Speaker 2: other crews and seeing how they would go into it
Speaker 2: and be able to present this beautiful art form that
Speaker 2: was ghetto gymnastics that we were do in our backyards practicing,
Speaker 2: and then we would bring it to the stage and
Speaker 2: it was a performance. Basically, it was like people were
Speaker 2: watching us battle and then Will would get on the
Speaker 2: mic and battle on the m C tip. He was
Speaker 2: a killer. He was a killer on the m seats
Speaker 2: on the freestyle tip. And so there was this club
Speaker 2: called Ballistics which Bud Bundy aka David Foxtino used to
Speaker 2: put out and it was a hip hop club and
Speaker 2: basically we would have you know, cruise from Pasadena, from
Speaker 2: LA from South Central come to battle at the spot
Speaker 2: in Hollywood, and that's where Buckwheat was at. That's where
Speaker 2: the Far Side exhibit Robin Thick call of Patton, Leonardo DiCaprio.
Speaker 2: We all came to Alyssa, Milano. We all came to
Speaker 2: this club and we were all teenagers and black eyed peas.
Speaker 2: That's where we met and that's where we started kind
Speaker 2: of like conjugating at this club called Ballistics.
Speaker 3: When these battles happened, Like is there a ticular crew
Speaker 3: or a person to whom you were like, nah, man,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna destroy and when I see him next, or
Speaker 3: that sort of thing, like like what's the battle mentality?
Speaker 3: To discredit another dancer? Not discredit another dancer, but like,
Speaker 3: how does one determine who won a dance battle?
Speaker 2: I think it's more about the cruise, you know, and
Speaker 2: and just getting the name up and getting your name
Speaker 2: because the crew would give you merit in every city
Speaker 2: if you're dominating these battles. It wasn't about money back then,
Speaker 2: there was no money. It was like you know when
Speaker 2: you watch eight mile, like eminems just battling. There was
Speaker 2: no like it's like yo, you're battling for reputation, right,
Speaker 2: and then you're battling at that time in the eighty
Speaker 2: nine to ninety, it's like, Yo, I might be seen
Speaker 2: by somebody that I can probably make this a living,
Speaker 2: right because we don't know. We're like we see people
Speaker 2: on television, we see people in the movie. He's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm a dancer, I'm a b boy. Maybe I can
Speaker 2: get a footloose opportunity. Maybe I can be on a
Speaker 2: dated letterman, like the way that Crazy Legs was. You
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying. So this just as a kid
Speaker 2: from the inner cities, You're just like, Yo, this is
Speaker 2: my opportunity to express myself. At that time, I wasn't rapping.
Speaker 2: I was just break dancing or freestyle dancing. And then
Speaker 2: I started elevating my mentality to be able to utilize
Speaker 2: performance dancing. And then with the guidance and the strength
Speaker 2: and the leadership of Will, I was like, Yo, maybe
Speaker 2: I can do this thing too and represent and utilize
Speaker 2: this as another weapon production songwriting breaking and like the
Speaker 2: way Chris Brown was, you know, Chris Brown had that
Speaker 2: same type of philosophy. It's like I could be a
Speaker 2: triple threat break it down because he wasn't just a
Speaker 2: regular dancer or not just a regular dancer. He's actually
Speaker 2: one of my favorites because he's able to do street
Speaker 2: dancing and not you know, he can do choreography, but
Speaker 2: he can also have his own freestyle bous to.
Speaker 3: What was the point in which you knew or seriously
Speaker 3: pursued like, Okay, this is what I want to do
Speaker 3: for a living. What was your life into your daily
Speaker 3: life into free entertainment, like as far as school or
Speaker 3: a job or that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: My first first job was at Disneyland picking up horsemen
Speaker 2: after the electrical Parade, which was I was dealing with
Speaker 2: a lot of shit back then, ladies and gentlemen that
Speaker 2: I was dealing with a lot of shit, But it
Speaker 2: taught me being on point as far as like, you know,
Speaker 2: being punctual, work, ethic, humility, because I was dealing with
Speaker 2: a lot of shit, but also being part of a
Speaker 2: corporate structure. And during the day I was I was
Speaker 2: working at Disneyland, and at night I was performing with
Speaker 2: Will and Apple, which was what was to become Black
Speaker 2: Eyed Peas, And so I had a day job to
Speaker 2: be able to facilitate my dream at night, just like
Speaker 2: what you guys used to do a mirror at the
Speaker 2: was it called Leilah's Was that spot?
Speaker 3: What was that spot called the five Spot?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, the early years. Yes, So we used
Speaker 2: to do that same thing. We used to go to
Speaker 2: this Peace and Justice Center and just sharpen uswars do
Speaker 2: like a jam or we had a live band and
Speaker 2: we would rock out and we would do these performances.
Speaker 2: And so even though we weren't getting paid a lot of money,
Speaker 2: maybe like one hundred and two hundred bucks, we looked
Speaker 2: at it like, oh, this is the start of something.
Speaker 2: Maybe we can, you know, continue to grow this art
Speaker 2: form and this this vehicle called Black Eyed Peas and
Speaker 2: this could become something. So, you know, we're straight out
Speaker 2: of high school, man, We're seventeen eighteen year old kids
Speaker 2: that that had a dollar in a dream or two
Speaker 2: dollars in a dream for gas. And so Disneyland was
Speaker 2: my first initial job fulfilling the dream because that was
Speaker 2: the way I was able to pay for gas or
Speaker 2: meals to get to the studio or to my performance.
Speaker 5: I was gonna had y'all officially become at band clan
Speaker 5: at that point, No so Will.
Speaker 2: And Apple got signed at sixteen as an ad Bank clan,
Speaker 2: and it was another brother named Mookie that was part
Speaker 2: of that trio. Easy actually discovered Will and Apple at
Speaker 2: Ballistics the Bud Bundy joint, and so he signed him.
Speaker 2: He was like, Yo, I love, I love what you
Speaker 2: guys represent. You guys are kind of like the West
Speaker 2: Coast version of a Trap cal Quest or Diggable Planets.
Speaker 2: You guys are like, you know, you got that whatever
Speaker 2: whatever he said, Bohemian rap or whatever, because he didn't
Speaker 2: know how to explain it. And so he's like, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna do the same thing Diggable and Troy did in
Speaker 2: the East Coast. I'm gonna do that for you guys
Speaker 2: here in the West Coast. And so unfortunately Easy he
Speaker 2: passed away in ninety five, and so that's that was
Speaker 2: kind of the moment where Will was like, Yo, we
Speaker 2: got to start a new thing. It can't be ad
Speaker 2: Bank plan So let's just I don't know, called it
Speaker 2: blue Unit. Nah, that's why. Uh let's call it, uh,
Speaker 2: let's call it uh Beans of rice why? Nah, it's
Speaker 2: just kind of whack. What about uh? What about black
Speaker 2: eyed peas peas? What does that represent black eyed peas
Speaker 2: is so food we could feed the soul with our music.
Speaker 2: Oh shit, okay, black eyed peas and black eyed peas
Speaker 2: brings good luck during New Year's we bring good luck
Speaker 2: with our music. So we started coming with a cool
Speaker 2: ideas about what black eyed peas represented. And plus, there
Speaker 2: wasn't a lot of food groups out there other than
Speaker 2: the chili.
Speaker 3: Right, Fante, You're kind of a part of this, but you,
Speaker 3: you and Pooh don't necessarily do like run DMC Tug
Speaker 3: of War style. But you know in the piece there
Speaker 3: are various songs in which you guys trade lines and
Speaker 3: that sort of thing. Can you describe to me, like
Speaker 3: what is the creative process when you are one third
Speaker 3: of a unit and you're creating a song, and you know,
Speaker 3: of course there's the old all right, you get one verse,
Speaker 3: you get one verse, you get one verse, but you
Speaker 3: know who decides which verse goes first? He's the first
Speaker 3: verse to be heard. Who decides like when you guys
Speaker 3: are writing songs and which you are are trading like
Speaker 3: tug of War lines, Like walk me through just the
Speaker 3: creative process of how you guys develop your lyrics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say the best way to describe the
Speaker 2: most recent exchange of even shared contributions is this album
Speaker 2: called Masters in the Sun, which we put out in
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, which is probably about that love that record, Yes,
Speaker 2: thank you Brother, which is our best work. It's not
Speaker 2: a pop record, it's a strictly Black Eyed Peas is
Speaker 2: showing you what we still are capable of doing as
Speaker 2: hip hop kids. As MC's we got to work with
Speaker 2: our freaking one of our mentors, Lallo Shipperd doing all
Speaker 2: these tres. So that being said, you know, we were
Speaker 2: just in the studio just viben, like jumping around and
Speaker 2: just acting like we were seventeen again. And that's what
Speaker 2: the piece is like. It's a friendship. You know. We've
Speaker 2: had different iterations of as you mentioned earlier about like
Speaker 2: is it a third, is it a fourth? You know,
Speaker 2: shout out to all the ladies that have been part
Speaker 2: of our journey. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: like Black Eyed Peas is myself where I am an
Speaker 2: apple and it's always been that, and so what you
Speaker 2: see on stage is us jumping around having a good time,
Speaker 2: just you know, not taking ourselves too seriously, not to
Speaker 2: dayl out soul, not to daylight because they said the
Speaker 2: same thing that inspired us. So we just we do that.
Speaker 2: We are in the studio and we're building and we
Speaker 2: say a couple of words. I don't like that line.
Speaker 2: Maybe we've changed that line. All right, app what do
Speaker 2: you got? Apple? Say something? And then we just start
Speaker 2: exchange and then you have your traditional like you know,
Speaker 2: tab what you got? You? I got this first? Okay,
Speaker 2: you go first? All right, well we got this. So
Speaker 2: there's no recipe. It's just we're scientists in there. We
Speaker 2: we tap into a frequency that we want to display
Speaker 2: on every song and it comes out magical because we
Speaker 2: know our formula. We know how to maneuver on stage
Speaker 2: and in the studio as a trio.
Speaker 5: You spoke about briefly about the ladies that y'all worked
Speaker 5: with over the years.
Speaker 4: I want to ask you specifically about Kim Hill.
Speaker 5: I really love her, Like, what memories do you have
Speaker 5: of working with her during that time of.
Speaker 2: First of all, I just want to acknowledge all the
Speaker 2: ladies that have worked with us, and Kim Hill set
Speaker 2: the tone. You know, She's been such an amazing piece
Speaker 2: of our history. And for those folks that don't know,
Speaker 2: she's an amazing designer as well. She has some pieces. Yeah,
Speaker 2: DJ She's a great mom and she's just she's all
Speaker 2: around amazing. So she just set the tone for us
Speaker 2: because she was older than us at the time when
Speaker 2: we're when we started Black Eyed Peas, so she was
Speaker 2: kind of like an older sister figure to us, and
Speaker 2: she kept us online when we're on tour. You know,
Speaker 2: we're like teenagers. She was in her early twenties and
Speaker 2: we were like, you know, still kind of goofy and
Speaker 2: messing around, and she'd be like, Yo, guys, we gotta
Speaker 2: we gotta show them arow or whatever. But it was
Speaker 2: cool because we looked at her as like an older
Speaker 2: sister and she always showed love. She was always inspirational,
Speaker 2: and you know, to this day, I'll hit her up
Speaker 2: on Instagram and we just we have a mutual respect
Speaker 2: for each other. So so I'm glad you said that, man,
Speaker 2: because she contributed a lot to the first two albums
Speaker 2: behind the front and bridging the gap, and you know,
Speaker 2: she's just she's amazing and I'm proud of everything she's
Speaker 2: doing now. So salute to Kim Hill.
Speaker 3: He walked us through the process of what led to
Speaker 3: the deal with Interscope from the time that you got
Speaker 3: form the group to getting that deal, Like, what was
Speaker 3: the process?
Speaker 2: A lot of a lot of shows, man, a lot
Speaker 2: of shows, A lot of no's, Black eyed peas, You're
Speaker 2: not tangible enough. There's already a slum village, there's already roots,
Speaker 2: there's already a Fuji's What makes you thinks you're gonna
Speaker 2: sell records?
Speaker 3: I feir.
Speaker 2: Man, it was. We dealt with a lot of no's.
Speaker 2: It's not tangible enough. I don't hear any uh, you know,
Speaker 2: who are the black eyed peas? What are the black
Speaker 2: eyed peas? Like? You know what? You got a ninja
Speaker 2: and a black guy in a Filipino like, what are
Speaker 2: you guys? You know? So it's just not understanding what
Speaker 2: what we were going to contribute to the world. And
Speaker 2: we always had an international mindset because Apple came from
Speaker 2: the Philippines, so we knew wanted to make music for
Speaker 2: the world. And even if domestic didn't understand what we
Speaker 2: were trying to do with our music, because we were
Speaker 2: inspired by you know, Georgie Benjor and Sergio Mendez and
Speaker 2: Brazil sixty six and all these amazing Brazilian artists and
Speaker 2: We loved the samples. We loved those ideas of being
Speaker 2: able to go to Brazil one day and being able
Speaker 2: to tour Europe and making a stamp in Europe, just
Speaker 2: like the way Jimmy Hendrix did, the way that the
Speaker 2: Doors did, the way that you guys did at a
Speaker 2: jazz cafe. You know, it was just that that idea
Speaker 2: of always wanted to go international, and so you know,
Speaker 2: it was it was a journey man. It was a
Speaker 2: journey of belief, of doubling down on ourselves when people
Speaker 2: were doubting us, and we just we just continued tucking
Speaker 2: on and fortuneen Jimmy Ivy and saw the genius and
Speaker 2: what was to become Black Eyed Peas. And the thing
Speaker 2: that he said to us is we were going through
Speaker 2: a bidding war. It was poly Anthony and Sony Rest
Speaker 2: in Peace at five fifty, and it was also Tom
Speaker 2: Wally at Oarner Brothers and then at Jimmy Ivy and
Speaker 2: so so Jimmy's like, you know, you can make records here,
Speaker 2: no matter how many records you sell. You can have
Speaker 2: a career here with me. You can get a million
Speaker 2: dollars from Sony, But who knows what they're gonna do
Speaker 2: as far as you're touring, you guys are a touring band.
Speaker 2: If you guys are about the money, you can go
Speaker 2: to Son. But if you're about a career and have
Speaker 2: longevity and belief, come here. So you know, fortunately we chose,
Speaker 2: we chose right, and Jimmy was kind of like the
Speaker 2: He was the godfather that led us on that path.
Speaker 3: Whenever an artist puts the big hit at the very
Speaker 3: end of the album, then I always feel like, Okay,
Speaker 3: maybe they didn't believe in the product or whatever. And
Speaker 3: I know that when behind the front bridging the gap,
Speaker 3: not behind it. Yeah, so you know, there was a
Speaker 3: second where it's like, okay, you guys get in traction
Speaker 3: on on TRL and this is about to happen. You
Speaker 3: guys have out to do it. Could you describe what
Speaker 3: the feeling is like when it's it's kind of a
Speaker 3: close but no cigar moment, and then you have to
Speaker 3: make a decision on what your your surviving is going
Speaker 3: to be sink or swim? Like, did you walk through
Speaker 3: that period?
Speaker 2: That's when we knew the internet was real?
Speaker 3: Oh shit, Okay, this is when.
Speaker 2: We found out the Internet existed and it I mean
Speaker 2: it swallowed ourselves. It was this thing called Nabster.
Speaker 3: Okay, we had all the.
Speaker 2: Promo marketing, all the looks you can have. We were
Speaker 2: on tour, on a college invasion tour with Daylight and
Speaker 2: White Left and I believe it was Bismarquis, and we
Speaker 2: would go to these like little after parties and they
Speaker 2: were playing Bridging the Gap. We're like, yo. Will gets
Speaker 2: all mad. It's like, tap, did you did you bring
Speaker 2: bring the record? Because the record wasn't out yet? Did
Speaker 2: you bring the record here? I was like, no, what
Speaker 2: are you talking about? He's like, who's playing the fucking record?
Speaker 2: So it was a girl She's like, I love your
Speaker 2: new albums, and Will was like, what do you mean
Speaker 2: our new album it's not even out. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's out, it's out on Napster. He's like, what the
Speaker 2: fuck is Napster. It's like, what's Napster? She's like, Napster's
Speaker 2: like the new pirting shit, like you can get all
Speaker 2: these like new albums. So we basically found out that
Speaker 2: our album had been pirated and been freaking downloaded for free,
Speaker 2: and so the momentum was like, oh shit, we did
Speaker 2: all this promo. We did. We were on tour, TRL
Speaker 2: picked up the song, but we only sold we sold
Speaker 2: less than behind the front because people are now going
Speaker 2: to Napster, so they got they get it for free
Speaker 2: instead of buying the record, buying the CD. So then
Speaker 2: we said, yo, we got to go into creating the
Speaker 2: next record. So that's when we went into creating the
Speaker 2: Elephant album. This is two thousand and one.
Speaker 3: Right, So how are decisions made as far as who
Speaker 3: to work with, who to bring, like what producer to
Speaker 3: work with, what members to let in the group? Where
Speaker 3: all those things, like how are you guys just around
Speaker 3: this point in the early aughts in terms of communication,
Speaker 3: It's like.
Speaker 2: We're all going through our own individual issues. And I
Speaker 2: remember at being away from from the studio a lot.
Speaker 2: So it's me and Will heavy in the studio on elephone.
Speaker 2: And at that time, nine eleven happened, so we were
Speaker 2: recording Bodega Bay. Nine eleven happens. We're supposed to go
Speaker 2: on tour in September twelve. We go on tour September twelve,
Speaker 2: and we travel around the US and we see all
Speaker 2: this divide, all this, you know, all this hatred towards
Speaker 2: Middle Eastern people, and so we were like, yo, we
Speaker 2: kept asking the question, No, where's the love within humanity?
Speaker 2: So we would go to these different spots asking the
Speaker 2: same question, where's the love within humanity? Where's the love? Okay,
Speaker 2: that's that's kind of dope. There's something there with this
Speaker 2: topic where's the love? So we started creating where's the love?
Speaker 2: The record the song, and we recorded these records where's
Speaker 2: the Love? Let's get it started. We recorded Hey Mama,
Speaker 2: all these joints off at elephone, and I remember we
Speaker 2: played it for Ron Fair and he said, I don't
Speaker 2: hear a single? What I don't hear a single? So
Speaker 2: are exacts? Are like, we don't hear a single on elephone?
Speaker 2: So we're like, we gotta double down. If this is
Speaker 2: our last record, what are we gonna do? So at
Speaker 2: that time, we had been dealing with a girl that
Speaker 2: Will had been working with named Stacy, and she was
Speaker 2: working on a solo project and she had been singing
Speaker 2: like you know when you have a girl in the studio,
Speaker 2: she's singing the girl parts that we will roll yeah,
Speaker 2: so so referencing stuff. But it actually sounded good and
Speaker 2: we kept it on there and her voice was something
Speaker 2: that we gravitated to. She was dope. She had had
Speaker 2: her own group prior to us having her in the studio.
Speaker 2: She was a teenage or like a kid star, and
Speaker 2: so we're like, yo, this maybe there's some magic here.
Speaker 2: So we kept on the records and then we're like, yo,
Speaker 2: are we gonna put put her in the group? Like, yo,
Speaker 2: we we've had all these different females. It's not anything new.
Speaker 2: We've never you know, it's it's not that we've not
Speaker 2: had a female, because we have. We had Kim Hill,
Speaker 2: Macy Gray, Stero, Don Beckman, Noel Skaggs, all these females
Speaker 2: have worked with us, DeBie Nova. But now there was
Speaker 2: going to be a female that might not fit the
Speaker 2: mold because he's coming from a group that was more
Speaker 2: of like a pop group. So we just said, fuck it,
Speaker 2: let's go, let's let's make this happen. Let's just bring
Speaker 2: in the crew, let's take her on tour. We took
Speaker 2: her on tour. People hated it. They were like, oh man,
Speaker 2: what's this. This ain't black eyed Peas. I'm not feeling this.
Speaker 2: So they were hate, Like yo, it just turned like
Speaker 2: it turned negative because we have this new girl in
Speaker 2: the group Fergie, and so we put out Where's the Love?
Speaker 2: And it smashes Oh. Before that, we actually I went
Speaker 2: to a club in La called Josephs and I met
Speaker 2: this kid who was a part of this boy band
Speaker 2: and he's a dancer, and so he's transitioning from like
Speaker 2: this boy band to becoming a solo artist. I'm like, yo, man,
Speaker 2: if you have talent, I don't care where you're coming from. Bro, Like,
Speaker 2: if you got talent, let's go, let's work. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm working with Pharrell. I got this new project that
Speaker 2: I'm doing. I'm transitioning from this group to now doing
Speaker 2: my solo thing. I was like, Yo, you think you
Speaker 2: can sing a hook on this record? We have right now?
Speaker 2: Is Where's the Love? The Love? The Love?
Speaker 4: That was it?
Speaker 2: I said, can you give me something like mercy mercy
Speaker 2: me or like What's going on by Marvin Gaye? He says,
Speaker 2: all right, cool, give me a minute. He goes creates
Speaker 2: whatever he's gonna create. He calls me like, tab I
Speaker 2: got it. He sings it over the phone. People killing,
Speaker 2: people dying, children hurt, and you hear them crying. I'm like, yo,
Speaker 2: what the what?
Speaker 3: Yo?
Speaker 2: I gotta call Will. I call Will. I tell him, Yo,
Speaker 2: Will I got the hook? You're like, you got the hook? No,
Speaker 2: I got the person to sing the hook from. Where's
Speaker 2: the Love? He's like, who I said, justin Timberlake? He's
Speaker 2: like justin Timberlake? The Backstreet boy he's he's not a
Speaker 2: Backstreet boy, he's part of in Sync. He's in Sync.
Speaker 2: He's like, that's even fucking worse. Tab Why are we
Speaker 2: gonna have that guy sing on our hook? But I
Speaker 2: saw what he brought. I didn't care what his past
Speaker 2: or where he was coming from. It's like, if the
Speaker 2: song is great, I don't care who's singing it. Let's go.
Speaker 2: So he comes in and he records it, and the
Speaker 2: left the rest is magic. We put it out, creates
Speaker 2: this huge, huge, amazing frequency around the world. It becomes
Speaker 2: our first number one record, and Ron Fairs puts strings
Speaker 2: on it, and that was his connection to it. I
Speaker 2: always knew it was.
Speaker 4: To be a hit.
Speaker 3: Little buddy, when this song finally takes off, what was
Speaker 3: the first paradigm shift that occurred in your life? I
Speaker 3: guess you can only have one time to have that
Speaker 3: experience in which you instantly see the shift of first
Speaker 3: we were a niche, underground group and suddenly we might
Speaker 3: be the establishment, So what what is happening?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: What's the feeling like? What happens?
Speaker 2: I love that you said that because I was so
Speaker 2: proud of you transitioning into Late Night Fellon because it
Speaker 2: was dope to see you guys like you know, and
Speaker 2: that umbrella sparked you to be able to be in
Speaker 2: the space of the oscars and have to people, to
Speaker 2: be acting and all the great things that you guys
Speaker 2: have been doing. So that being said, I think for
Speaker 2: us because I'm I love comedy man, I'm a big
Speaker 2: big I love comedy and humor. When we were on
Speaker 2: parody on Saturday Night Live, yeah.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, how did that feel to be?
Speaker 2: Yo? We made it boy from East to La that
Speaker 2: just loves hip hop culture and yes it was tongue
Speaker 2: in cheek. It was funny. It's like they're making fun
Speaker 2: of the black eyed Peas, but they're mentioning the black
Speaker 2: eye ps.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: My brother Apple came from Philippines not knowing a word
Speaker 2: of English because hip hop taught him how to speak English.
Speaker 2: Do you write a dictionary? Learned how to rap and
Speaker 2: became a freaking huge international superstar from the.
Speaker 4: Film pop y'all are pop culture references like that.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, yo, you gotta own it. Who else
Speaker 2: but us? I mean, we get ship if it's there,
Speaker 2: own it. And if people hate all good Oh you
Speaker 2: guys shell outs. Yeah, we're selling out stadiums around the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah. You know. My manager used to tease Tarika and
Speaker 3: I about like he would always say, well, you guys
Speaker 3: are salty because you never got your what he calls
Speaker 3: your Bentley moment and his short His short Bentley moment
Speaker 3: was sort of a shorthand for like whatever it is
Speaker 3: the life that rappers think that rappers should be going through.
Speaker 3: We should be walking in slow motion. We should be
Speaker 3: you know, pouring champagne all over women and whatever whatever
Speaker 3: hype William's slow motion kind of life. That Yeah, like
Speaker 3: that experience.
Speaker 2: So you like this bill. For me, it was getting
Speaker 2: custody my son. Being able to pay twenty thousand dollars
Speaker 2: to get full custody of my son Josh. I was like, Yo,
Speaker 2: that's worth more than than any gold chain, than any
Speaker 2: Bentley because now I'm able to raise my son on
Speaker 2: my playing ground the way that I want to raise it.
Speaker 2: And so that was something that always bothered me because
Speaker 2: I was a teenage parent and honestly, I didn't know
Speaker 2: what parenting was. Bro Like, I was a little kid
Speaker 2: having a kid. So when the where's the love moment happened,
Speaker 2: that was when financially I was able to actually provide
Speaker 2: a stable home for my son. Right although I had
Speaker 2: help for my mom because I was still young, I
Speaker 2: was a twenty one to twenty two, at least I
Speaker 2: have some form of stability financially to be able to
Speaker 2: take my son away from the way he was being
Speaker 2: brought up, to be able to get him now a
Speaker 2: home the way I was brought up. And so that
Speaker 2: was like for me, that was a moment beyond any
Speaker 2: Bentley moment or or any gold chain or you know.
Speaker 2: And I bought a house, yeah, but it was like
Speaker 2: taking care of Josh was like yo, I made it.
Speaker 2: And it was because of that ways of love money
Speaker 2: that brought me this opportunity to be a dad.
Speaker 4: How old were you when you had Josh?
Speaker 2: You said you were seventeen. I actually walked. I walked
Speaker 2: my graduation with a son, bro Like, I was like
Speaker 2: only it was crazy dude, and it was like, yeah, Okay,
Speaker 2: this guy's not gonna make it. He's got a kid
Speaker 2: at seventeen. But it also it gave me the fire
Speaker 2: to be able to not give up on my dreams
Speaker 2: and my aspirations even though I was a teen parent
Speaker 2: and I'm not in any way form a fashion don't
Speaker 2: e teen parents parenting, but I am saying like it
Speaker 2: put a fire in my ass and it just like
Speaker 2: that was like a Okay, now I got to come
Speaker 2: to grips to be able to give my son a
Speaker 2: better opportunity of life because I know that that's my motivation.
Speaker 3: Of all those records, I would probably say that maybe
Speaker 3: Monkey Business was probably the hardest to create because it's
Speaker 3: like how do you keep the momentum up? Then that
Speaker 3: becomes bigger, So I don't even want to go to
Speaker 3: the to the E n D. But going into monkey Business,
Speaker 3: what was the pressure?
Speaker 2: Like, I mean, bro, like we uh we went in
Speaker 2: there and actually tried to make hits elephant wasn't trying
Speaker 2: to make his We're just making records like yo, what's
Speaker 2: popping over there? Ship? What's what's what's uh? What's Timberland? Doing,
Speaker 2: What's what's Pharrell doing? What's this person doing? Like it
Speaker 2: was all over the place being students and like how
Speaker 2: do we compete? And so records like Don't Lie, which
Speaker 2: is my least favorite record, even though it was a smash.
Speaker 2: I don't like performing it's just then we had Don't
Speaker 2: Funk with My Heart, which is cool because we studied
Speaker 2: Bollywood and we liked that frequency and we loved Leasa
Speaker 2: Lisa and Code Jam love that record. I wonder if
Speaker 2: I take yeah so that record and it was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: this kind of sounds like weekends from Uh from from
Speaker 2: Uh Bridging the Gap, which we sampled Debbie Dabb look
Speaker 2: got weekends because here we come, and so there was
Speaker 2: like a formula happening. And then we sampled dig Dale,
Speaker 2: Misery Loot.
Speaker 7: For Pump It, and then Will did my humps and
Speaker 7: then we finished it off with with the James Brown Joint,
Speaker 7: which is my favorite.
Speaker 3: Yeah, talk about that session. I spun the ship out
Speaker 3: that record when I was jealous, man, how did that happen?
Speaker 2: We were at the mojo.
Speaker 3: They don't want music, they don't want music.
Speaker 2: Yes, Boom that was our first Boom Boom song, and
Speaker 2: mister Brown, as he liked to be referred to, mister Brown.
Speaker 2: We met him at the Mobile Awards in London and
Speaker 2: we're like, mister Brown, we're working on a new record
Speaker 2: with huge fans. You know, b boys, we love what
Speaker 2: you've done with you know, your work, blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: giving them flowers. Well, I don't have to work with anybody,
Speaker 2: but something says that I need to work with the
Speaker 2: Black Eyed Peas yo yo.
Speaker 1: Also, James Brown impressions.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's trying, but but he says, Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna show up to the studio. We're recording at uh
Speaker 2: Metropolis in London, Paramount No Metropolis Studios. He comes, he
Speaker 2: has his whole entourage. Bro, when I tell you this
Speaker 2: dude is a mega superstar. He walked in with the
Speaker 2: lady that combs his hair. So he's sitting down Brown.
Speaker 2: They bring out a mirror. The lady sits down, combs
Speaker 2: his hair, and then he's like, okay, I'm ready. I
Speaker 2: don't ready. So we're like okay, cool. So so so
Speaker 2: our band. They go in there, they start doing their thing.
Speaker 2: He's like no, no, no, everybody out. He brings his horn
Speaker 2: players so his horn players are leading the dance. That's
Speaker 2: that his horn players are leading the dance. We're like, oh, yo,
Speaker 2: just let him do his thing. So like, what kind
Speaker 2: of style can we bring to what James Brown's bringing
Speaker 2: mister Brown's bringing? What about like that Greg nice and
Speaker 2: that that nice smooth joint Yo Disney Gless. He plays
Speaker 2: the sad like Max. So that's that's the frequency that
Speaker 2: we tapped into for the rap part that Will is
Speaker 2: doing with James Brown. And I just remember, like after
Speaker 2: the session were breaking bread. He's sitting at the table
Speaker 2: and he's talking to us and somebody comes over and
Speaker 2: starts cutting his food. Like his meat is his steak.
Speaker 2: He has someone to cut his steak, he has someone
Speaker 2: to brush his hair, and then he goes like this,
Speaker 2: so he comes and wipes his mouth.
Speaker 3: I was like, wait a minute, hey, Steve, that's like
Speaker 3: one of my favorite tracks of me too.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I mean that record just came so natural.
Speaker 2: And the fact that we got tipped to start the song,
Speaker 2: you know, it's he said something really special when we
Speaker 2: were on the road. It was with him, Dave Chappelle.
Speaker 2: He said, well, black Eyed Peas, we want you guys
Speaker 2: to carry the baton of what we started and take
Speaker 2: it international and all the stuff that you guys are
Speaker 2: doing international, you guys are representing the essence of the
Speaker 2: native tongue. So that was very important. That was around
Speaker 2: that time, the monkey Business era. But during that time
Speaker 2: we also got to tour with amazing rock groups. Can
Speaker 2: I just tell you about the rocky.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to know what tour life was like
Speaker 3: at this point in your life.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're touring with with with I mean seven Dust, uh,
Speaker 2: no doubt, when Stefani lit Blink one eighty two, it
Speaker 2: was just Dope Metallica. We were just toying with all
Speaker 2: these amazing rock groups because those are the type of
Speaker 2: festivals we were doing, and we're the only hip hop
Speaker 2: group part of that that journey. So we learned how
Speaker 2: to perform in front of the audiences that weren't necessarily
Speaker 2: hip hop audiences, and so our pellet kind of expanded,
Speaker 2: and that's why we had, you know, we worked with
Speaker 2: Travis Barker, and we worked with popa Roach and all
Speaker 2: these these rock groups so that we could learn how
Speaker 2: to bring that frequency as well and just be students
Speaker 2: of the game and learn how to perform in front
Speaker 2: of these audiences that you know, you better be just
Speaker 2: doing something other than just playing instruments or just rapping,
Speaker 2: because they're gonna they're gonna tell you, they're gonna throw
Speaker 2: stuff at you, they're gonna flip you off. So we
Speaker 2: were learning how stage died, we're learning how to do
Speaker 2: mosh pits all that stuff around Europe and and and
Speaker 2: feeing us that we can bring that same rock energy
Speaker 2: with with the Black Eyed Peas essence.
Speaker 3: Oh, this is a question I always wanted to know. Okay,
Speaker 3: So for the longest I'll say that basically, before the
Speaker 3: Internet kind of colonized the world and had us all
Speaker 3: thinking like at the same time, whereas before you go
Speaker 3: to different territories and this section of town didn't get
Speaker 3: what New York has or that sort of thing. But
Speaker 3: there was a moment where I remember, uh, when you
Speaker 3: guys first came out. Uh, you guys went to Australia
Speaker 3: and you did Big Day out right.
Speaker 2: Yes, loved it.
Speaker 3: And I remember, uh Jurassic five telling me, you know,
Speaker 3: we we've yet to go to Australia. They're like, yo, dog,
Speaker 3: you got to come to Australia. Man, Like we play
Speaker 3: stadiums over there, and I was like Jurassic five playing
Speaker 3: the stadium. It's like no, dog, Like you don't get it.
Speaker 3: Like the artists that are club artists in the United
Speaker 3: States when they go to Australia, they're like mega And
Speaker 3: he was like, yeah, man, Ben Harper plays stadiums and
Speaker 3: it was like yoyo, Black Eyed Peas can set out
Speaker 3: a stadium. I was like black the Black Eyed Peas
Speaker 3: just opened for me last week to sound the stadium.
Speaker 3: I literally I was like my mind was blown. But
Speaker 3: for you, what was the feeling to get and and yes,
Speaker 3: to put in context, like Australia is just different. You know,
Speaker 3: they're not really controlled by like corporate radio the way
Speaker 3: that it is over here with clear channel and you
Speaker 3: know that sort of thing where playlists are determined, like
Speaker 3: still DJ's played whole music over there, like a person
Speaker 3: like Eric Abadu can still find space on pop radio
Speaker 3: along with whoever is like Hitten and pop and that
Speaker 3: sort of thing. Like they've always been balanced that way.
Speaker 3: So as a result, a lot of the music that
Speaker 3: we like, that's thee in underground music gets the same
Speaker 3: platform that something mainstream is. But for you, like what
Speaker 3: was the feeling in breaking breaking that ceiling and finally,
Speaker 3: you know, getting to a point where I'm certain that
Speaker 3: you know where Michael Jackson's like, hey, I'm a big
Speaker 3: fan of you guys, and like what was that feeling?
Speaker 3: Like like who are the people that you're meeting and
Speaker 3: those sort of things.
Speaker 2: So, so being able to travel to Australia, you're seeing
Speaker 2: all these actors and actresses and kind of like the
Speaker 2: the experience of the Oscars world. That's the transition of
Speaker 2: going from like the music world to now meeting actors, actresses, directors.
Speaker 2: That's actually where we met James Cameron. And so you're
Speaker 2: meeting all these people and you're getting this after effect
Speaker 2: of like yo, I didn't know they liked the music, right,
Speaker 2: We're just we're just kind of like nomads, just traveling
Speaker 2: and you don't feel the effects of the impact that
Speaker 2: you're having because you're just doing You're just being you
Speaker 2: and you're just creating music. So we were we were
Speaker 2: just embracing the beauty that was Australia and is Australia
Speaker 2: because they supported us before any before anyone actually gave
Speaker 2: us that then Flowers, it was Australia and New Zealand.
Speaker 2: Let me show you something. Yes, this is my first
Speaker 2: plaque bridging back to New Zealand. This is the first
Speaker 2: plaque that actually got gold. Wow. So that being said,
Speaker 2: in New Zealand and Australia, they had love for us
Speaker 2: before any any domestics, so especially on our first earlier
Speaker 2: work with Behind the Front of Bridge the Gap, so
Speaker 2: you know, it just it just affirmed everything that we
Speaker 2: had been doing. We had been working towards being able
Speaker 2: to tour the world and be international and just bring
Speaker 2: that energy. And I would say Australia was probably the
Speaker 2: place where we spent most time because we did the
Speaker 2: big day out for months right and every year we
Speaker 2: did it up until that point when they stopped doing it.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I have a theory about mega songs. Every
Speaker 3: mega song that I've ever known from Louis Louis to
Speaker 3: shout to Tequila, like mega song songs that will never die.
Speaker 3: The story always starts the same where it's like we
Speaker 3: created that in like twenty minutes, Like we didn't really
Speaker 3: put calculated thought in it. You're co creator of a
Speaker 3: mega song like long after Life Ends or whatever. Like
Speaker 3: I seriously doubt that I got a feeling will ever
Speaker 3: go away or not be played at any function, be
Speaker 3: it wedding, celebration, barbarments. Yeah, the amount of times I've
Speaker 3: had to spend it as a DJ. What was the
Speaker 3: process in making that song?
Speaker 2: I just remember we'll talking about what's that song we're building,
Speaker 2: what's that song that plays at every freaking sporting events, wedding,
Speaker 2: the earth Winding Fire song, And I'm like, September, Yeah,
Speaker 2: we need something like that in that space where it's
Speaker 2: like everywhere, it's playing everywhere. Yo. We need something like say,
Speaker 2: celebrate good time, come on, yeah, we do. We need
Speaker 2: we need something that's like gonna live sporting events, colleges. Yo,
Speaker 2: We're gonna make a college anthem. Yo. College. Oh shit,
Speaker 2: let's make a college anthem. And it's the first time
Speaker 2: that we had ever created a song where all of
Speaker 2: us are singing at the same time. We had never
Speaker 2: done before because every single song, like you said earlier, Amir,
Speaker 2: we have each one has a verse or you know,
Speaker 2: you have like a bridge or something. But in this song,
Speaker 2: we strategically said, we want the energy of this song
Speaker 2: to feel like one right. So I remember David Gheta
Speaker 2: sent the track to Will he's like, oh, I have
Speaker 2: this remix for the Love is Gone. Right now that
Speaker 2: the love is gone, remember that song? So this is
Speaker 2: the remix track to that song.
Speaker 3: Okay, he didn't use it.
Speaker 2: Oh really, yeah, he didn't use it. He's like, you
Speaker 2: guys can use it. So we used that track and
Speaker 2: Will came up with that chorus, and then we all
Speaker 2: came to the studio and we started jumping around. Like
Speaker 2: I said, when we started jumping around, that's when you
Speaker 2: know it's something. The first time we performed it, it
Speaker 2: was a disaster. Who performed at the Tangle It was horrible.
Speaker 3: Where was it?
Speaker 2: Wango Tangle Kiss Fama Ryan Seacrest, It was like I
Speaker 2: want to say it was. It was in in Anaheim.
Speaker 2: We performed it and people are likeive, no, We're like discouraged.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, this might not be the one. Maybe
Speaker 2: it's this other Boom Boom Pal song. There was a
Speaker 2: knockout punch Boomoom Pal came first, right right, That was
Speaker 2: at number one for like twelve weeks. Yeah, so we're like, yo,
Speaker 2: how do we outdo Boom Boom Pow? Because that was like, bro,
Speaker 2: we already we're already at number one twelve weeks and
Speaker 2: then we came with it. I got a filling and
Speaker 2: then it just knocked it out and it just stayed
Speaker 2: on the charts. And then we're doing all the award shows,
Speaker 2: all the the uh you know, all the sporting events.
Speaker 2: We did the Super Bowl, we did the World Cup.
Speaker 2: That song is blowing up everywhere. And then it just
Speaker 2: let us know that something that we thought was gonna
Speaker 2: be a college anthem became an anthem that the national Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's an anthem forever. So you know, No, we didn't
Speaker 2: do it in twenty seconds or twenty minutes or five minutes.
Speaker 2: It was done. It was It was a nice process. Yes,
Speaker 2: it was quick, but the idea that we wanted to
Speaker 2: present to the world was something that was very unison
Speaker 2: and very connected as one. And that's why that representation
Speaker 2: of us doing the lyrics together is a synonymous for
Speaker 2: that song, how it brings everyone together.
Speaker 3: When you're having this level of success. And again, like
Speaker 3: the question was like, can you guys, I'll do Elephunk okay,
Speaker 3: can you guys, I'll do monkey business? Okay? Can you
Speaker 3: I'll do the end? At any point? And you know,
Speaker 3: I know that you went through this in your memoir,
Speaker 3: But what was the point where like this wasn't fun anymore?
Speaker 3: Or it has it ever been a time where it's
Speaker 3: just like, was there ever a be careful for what
Speaker 3: you ask or wish for a moment for you?
Speaker 2: Right? For me? Will an App. I'm only speaking for
Speaker 2: us because you know, I can't say anything of the
Speaker 2: ladies that journeyed with us because maybe they have the
Speaker 2: same experience. But I love being on that stage with
Speaker 2: my brothers, bro, Like that's like our livelihood. When we're
Speaker 2: on stage. We're seventeen year old kids that just love
Speaker 2: performing and love you know, creating music and performing for
Speaker 2: the world. So there's never a moment, there's never a
Speaker 2: moment other than that moment when we took a break.
Speaker 2: That shit was bullshit, bro, That's like suicide. That eight
Speaker 2: year break. That a year break from twenty eleven to
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen when we put out Reepmore with j Balbin,
Speaker 2: when Sylvia Rone signed us from Interscope to Sony, and
Speaker 2: then we had success with Sylvia Ron and reinvented ourselves
Speaker 2: as a trio, which that's how we started. But that
Speaker 2: time period of being away for eight years, yes, I
Speaker 2: got cancer in twenty fourteen. But man, we were very
Speaker 2: lucky to come out of that, that your hiatus, because
Speaker 2: usually groups are gone for eight years. They're gone. There's
Speaker 2: no way you could come back. Do we come back
Speaker 2: at a filling level? No?
Speaker 3: How has that conversation happened? Are you guys actively communicating
Speaker 3: with each other and saying like, hey, need a break,
Speaker 3: need to have some me time, Well reconvene.
Speaker 2: No, it was it was. It wasn't a choice that
Speaker 2: me and Will and Apple had the I'm just being
Speaker 2: honest with you, guys, that's the reality. We would have
Speaker 2: kept going. We're at the height of our career. Why stop?
Speaker 2: But I get it, you know, not all of us
Speaker 2: wanted to continue. And so that being said, when it
Speaker 2: came back to coming back to wanting to do music again,
Speaker 2: this is after I battled cancer. I reached out to Will,
Speaker 2: I reached out to Apple, I reached out to Ferg.
Speaker 2: I said, yo, I'm ready. I need I need this
Speaker 2: to red like I need I need my healing performing
Speaker 2: Black Eyed Peas. We need to do it again. Will
Speaker 2: and Apple were like, let's go. And that's what it is. Me,
Speaker 2: Will and Apple are going. And that's how it's going
Speaker 2: to be. And fortunately at that time Apple the app
Speaker 2: met a singer from the Philippines named Ja Ray soul Right,
Speaker 2: and she was a young artist that inspired him to
Speaker 2: be able to bring her to the US and give
Speaker 2: her an opportunity to be able to to you know,
Speaker 2: to journey with the Black Eyed Peas and just be
Speaker 2: part of this amazing new I guess you can save
Speaker 2: this new lease on life because, like I said, we
Speaker 2: were on Interscope and then we got dropped, and then
Speaker 2: we got picked up by Silvia Rohan.
Speaker 3: Explain to me the process of getting dropped by Interscope
Speaker 3: when you're literally one of their biggest money makers.
Speaker 2: Well, Jimmy was gone, bro, Like Jimmy was now beats World.
Speaker 2: He's like, I don't have anything to do with So
Speaker 2: who took over? John Janet and Steve Berman Berman?
Speaker 3: Oh damn, Okay, I believe Burman is the cat if
Speaker 3: you remember the Dre Day video, Yeah, when he's playing
Speaker 3: the role with Jerry Heller. I didn't realize, like, wow,
Speaker 3: Berman took over in Scope. Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we put out Master of the Sun and
Speaker 2: they're like, this ain't it. This is not what we
Speaker 2: want from Black Eyed Peas and so the album was
Speaker 2: great but not today. So in their eyes it was
Speaker 2: a failure. It wasn't what they expected. And so they're like,
Speaker 2: you know what, we're going to part ways. I think
Speaker 2: we've exhausted all the energy the years. Thank you for
Speaker 2: all your contribution, but we're not going to renew the contract.
Speaker 2: So me, Will and Apple were like, yo, what what
Speaker 2: are we going to do? And like Will always does,
Speaker 2: Will's like, don't worry about it, guys, We're going to
Speaker 2: figure it out. So I trust him since I was seventeen,
Speaker 2: he's always been the don't worry about it, guys. We're
Speaker 2: going to figure it out. And that energy was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we are going to figure it out. It's all good.
Speaker 2: We got songs, we got you know, relationships. So we
Speaker 2: had this song called Retmo that we recorded with Jay
Speaker 2: Bowin right, So I remember Zeke from from Sony comes
Speaker 2: to the studio and he hears it and he's like, yo,
Speaker 2: I'm working on this this soundtrack. Would love this song
Speaker 2: to be part of the soundtrack, and so Will was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: but we want this for us, like we want this
Speaker 2: to be a Black Eyed Pea joint off of our
Speaker 2: new project. He's like, well, what label are you on.
Speaker 2: He's like, We're not on the label. So he leaves
Speaker 2: the studio called Sylvia Rome. Sylvie Roon shows up to
Speaker 2: the studio. Will plays the record for her and she's like, great,
Speaker 2: I love this record. Let's put it on the Bad
Speaker 2: Boys three soundtrack with Martin Lawrence and Will Smith before
Speaker 2: the slap and so he does that. Zeke is like, Yo,
Speaker 2: this is this is the future of Black Eyed Peas,
Speaker 2: this whole Latin afrobeat fusion whatever you guys are doing
Speaker 2: this with this frequency. It's international and it's popping right now.
Speaker 2: We're gonna sign black Eyed Peace soon to epic. So
Speaker 2: we get signed. We we create this album, which was Translation,
Speaker 2: which we put out during the pandemic. We still put
Speaker 2: out a record. We had songs like bro Like Me
Speaker 2: with Shaquita, We had Mamasita Withosuno via the Loco with
Speaker 2: Nikki Jam and Tiga. So all these records just represented
Speaker 2: where we were at in that state of our career
Speaker 2: and how we were inspired by these Latin affrobeat rhythms
Speaker 2: that were happening around the world, and so that was
Speaker 2: kind of our nod to that. And then We created
Speaker 2: another record which we put out called Elevation, and that
Speaker 2: one featured Don't You Worry with Shaquita and David Ghetta,
Speaker 2: and then we did a record with Anita from Brazil
Speaker 2: and Alalfa and the next record we're dropping is with
Speaker 2: Daddy Yankee.
Speaker 3: After having done it all, like, what is what is
Speaker 3: left for you as far as like in terms of
Speaker 3: what you would like to achieve with the group.
Speaker 2: With the group Docus series, be able to make the
Speaker 2: Black Eyed Peas movie, whatever that means, do it in
Speaker 2: a way where it's like stranger things fantasy, kind.
Speaker 3: Of to be a scripted series like that. I don't
Speaker 3: think it's a movie, it's a it's a series.
Speaker 2: Like the Beatles did a docu series, like the Beatles
Speaker 2: did a Yellow Submarine, where it's kind of like mystic magical,
Speaker 2: you know, something like that, whereas you can add fantasy
Speaker 2: because we're big sci fi guys. We love stranger things
Speaker 2: and just that whole creativity of creating stuff that's not
Speaker 2: just a typical like oh, these are hip hop kids,
Speaker 2: and then they became popular around the world. It's like,
Speaker 2: now we want to tell all these amazing stories like
Speaker 2: cancer survivor and tech guy. He's the he calls himself
Speaker 2: the Black iron Man because he's all about tech. And
Speaker 2: then you got this kid from the Philippines who was
Speaker 2: a farmer that didn't speak English and came to America.
Speaker 2: First person he met was where I am. So all
Speaker 2: these crazy stories. It's a little bit sensation wise, and
Speaker 2: it's it's entertaining and and and still appealing to the eye.
Speaker 3: I see, I see, well, man, dude, this is definitely
Speaker 3: worth the wait, and for you know, this is like
Speaker 3: our first in depth conversation with each other.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: So I'm really glad that we got this. Wait, Steve,
Speaker 3: you're about to say something.
Speaker 6: No, I was about to come wipe wipe something off
Speaker 6: your mouth.
Speaker 2: That's there. I just want to do a little, a
Speaker 2: little promo real quick on something that me. So I
Speaker 2: invested in this company called a Kid's Book, about which
Speaker 2: you already I sent it to you. The first book
Speaker 2: that I wrote is called the Kid's Book about Identity.
Speaker 2: And then we have a whole series of other books, like,
Speaker 2: you know, a kid's book about mindfulness, its book about addiction,
Speaker 2: book about anxiety, and it's all about having uncomfortable conversations
Speaker 2: with kids because a lot of times parents tiptoe around
Speaker 2: these conversations, and so we said, no, why don't we
Speaker 2: have these these books where we actually unlock those and
Speaker 2: make it a comfortable conversation out of something that's very
Speaker 2: uncomfortable to some families. And so, you know, it's just
Speaker 2: it's something that I invested in because I want to
Speaker 2: be able to give back. Just like I'm telling you, dude,
Speaker 2: Kobe really inspired me being with Kobe, being around him
Speaker 2: and seeing how he went from being a basketball player
Speaker 2: to actually being you know, winning an oscar, just like
Speaker 2: you writing books, almost creating an animation studio for inspired
Speaker 2: by his daughter.
Speaker 1: So this is just so, what's the name of the
Speaker 1: book series.
Speaker 2: A kid's book about?
Speaker 6: And where do we find that online?
Speaker 2: We get that on Amazon's Kids book About dot com.
Speaker 2: And basically it's all these different writers out there kids
Speaker 2: that are doing the forward so that they that you
Speaker 2: empower the kids to really be part of this journey
Speaker 2: along with the books that I'm writing for Marvel. Being
Speaker 2: an author is very important to me because then I'm
Speaker 2: able to inspire just like we did with lyrics, Like
Speaker 2: now I'm putting that same energy in that same approach
Speaker 2: to writing. Eventually, wanted to do my own script and
Speaker 2: create the first Native American feature film that will live
Speaker 2: in that same Marvel space that Black Panther lives. So
Speaker 2: that's my goal, and I'm doing my due diligence. I'm
Speaker 2: putting in the groundwork and putting in my ten thousand
Speaker 2: hours to be able to transition from music into being
Speaker 2: a creator and a screenwriter and eventually one day on
Speaker 2: wood are directed.
Speaker 4: Film Make it Up.
Speaker 3: I mean, you lived a life in which you know
Speaker 3: you may moves with no trepidation and you know you
Speaker 3: put your foot forward, so that's definitely going to happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, brother, I appreciate that. And again, uh fante, thank
Speaker 2: you man, thank you for the inspiration. I hope you
Speaker 2: feel better. Oh yeah, I want to say Tarique and
Speaker 2: Pharaoh Munch my two favorite ms of all time, of
Speaker 2: all time.
Speaker 8: I shall relate that to and And honestly, we didn't
Speaker 8: we didn't touch on daylight, bro, And that was something
Speaker 8: very important because when you text me about about Dave
Speaker 8: and that that piece you guys put together, everybody put together,
Speaker 8: that was beautiful, man, So.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for being a part of that.
Speaker 7: Man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to dedicate this one to Dave bro
Speaker 2: and his impact that he had on all of us
Speaker 2: and what Daylight means to us. And now with their
Speaker 2: music being on all streaming platforms, I'm proud of Postinus
Speaker 2: and Mace and Dave.
Speaker 3: I'm still listening to music like like It just came
Speaker 3: out yesterday. Well on behalf of the QLs crew, on
Speaker 3: Behaving laya cousin, Jake, Telo, Steve and Unpaid Bill came
Speaker 3: home from a cigarette. Thank you, Taboo, thank you for
Speaker 3: joining us and this is us Love. We will see
Speaker 3: you on the next go around, of course, Love Supreme,
Speaker 3: all right, see you. What's Love Supreme is the production
Speaker 3: of iHeart Free. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit
Speaker 3: the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 3: to your favorite child