Unless you were big on your non-commercial urban music, I can guarantee you that if I had’ve mentioned the name Black Eyed Peas to you 10 years ago (ie:1999) you would’ve screwed your face up at me and said “Who the hell are they?!” Well I’ll tell ya. They were originally a slightly more rugged hip hop group called Atban Klan who were based in East LA and signed to Westcoast rapper Eric “Eazy-E” Wright’s Ruthless Records label. They officially made their debut in the early 90s on Eazy’s send up of the traditional Christmas carol “We Wish You A Merry Christmas.” However, I won’t print the actual title simply because it’s far too profane. Sacreligious even. Their debut album for the label was called “Grass Roots” and was scheduled for a street date some time in 1995. However, it was never officially released. Although they were still a trio back in those days, there was a different member in the group called Mookie Mook, who would later leave and be replaced with Taboo. Also the rapper whom we all know today as Will.I.Am was then known as Will 1 X. Not too long after Eazy passed away from H.I.V./AIDS, they were dropped from Sony/Ruthless and wound up switching over to Interscope, who released their debut album “Behind The Front” in 1998. It was at this point that the line up was now Will.I.Am, (a name which, when I first saw it made me roll my eyes n’ go “oh ha, ha, ha”) Apl.De.Ap (which……I didn’t even know how the hell to pronounce) and of course, Taboo. It was later brought to my attention that they actually took their name from their old management team. The music ranged from party jams to songs with far more serious, social commentary featured in the lyrics. At times it would be both of these things combined, which is why they decided to go with the name Black Eyed Peas instead of Atban Klan, because black eyed peas is soul food and this music was designed to feed your soul, mind and body….dig? Of course nowadays they’re hardly conscious in their songs and whenever they try to be, it just comes off as phony for some reason or another. Still, Will.I.Am remains one heckuva a wise old fella. Check out his interview with Tavis Smiley…..very enlightening indeed. Anyhow, at the time of writing, their long awaited fifth album, which is called “The E.N.D” is about to finally be released all over the world. Since this is the case, I figured I’d go back and check out their first record. So, here’s my review:
Fallin’ Up: Being that this was the first ever Black Eyed Peas album, they needed something to, I suppose “officially introduce” them to the general public. This song pretty much serves as that type of intro. I guess what they they were saying was that they were individuals who didn’t necessarily conform to the usual behaviour of other hip hop acts, such as dressing up in the latest Tommy Hilfiger gear. At the same time, though they were also letting us know that even though they were much more positive, peaceful and conscious individuals, they weren’t exactly softies either. At one point Will says that “if you try and diss the peas you’ll get handled by Apl.D the (growling noise)……alligator.” Apparently that was his nickname at the time because in person he was laidback, but on stage he was aggressive. This song concludes with a gameshow skit, which continues throughout the album, but I’m not gonna review any of those things – just the tunes and nothin’ else.
Clap Your Hands: If I listen to this song really hard, it sounds to me like they’re talking about how they’re a positive group, yet some folks can’t seem to leave Will.I.Am the heck alone. They’re all getting up in his business, which seems kinda strange as they weren’t even a big group at that stage in their lives, they were still relatively unknown. Mind you he uses the Jamaican expletive “bomboclaat” to describe these people. “Bomboclaat” is of course equivalent to “The F Word.” Also, he uses “the N word” at one point, so where’s the positivity in that? No idea. Other than that, there are references to “Wanna Be Starting Something” by Michael Jackson, “Clap Your Hands” by the Meters and “Tenement Yard” by Inner Circle. That’s where the whole “too much looky looky looky” part of the song comes from. Jacob “Killer” Miller did it much better though. Well, duh! Of course he did. That’s a no brainer.
Joints & Jam: I remember seeing the video for this song on “Rage” a few times and just being really intrigued by what I was seeing. The whole concept behind the video clip was to say that whenever you hear the chorus, you get sucked into the song, so they were getting sucked into the TV screen, which seems sorta bizarre, but it actually works. “That’s the joint, that’s the jam, turn that shit up, play it again.” I’m sure we’ve all felt like that at some point in time…….you’re sitting around listening to an album and one of those songs catches your ear, so you play it over & over again on your stereo with the volume cranked up to 10. In between that chorus are all kinds of social messages, one of which is “we’re about mass appeal, no segregation, got black to Asian and Caucasian.” The songs they’ve sampled are “Love Til The End Of Time” by Paulinho DaCosta, “Grease Is The Word” by Frankie Valli and “One Two Shit” by A Tribe Called Quest.
The Way U Make Me Feel: This next one is almost entirely Will.I.Am and their ex-backup singer, Kim Hill. It’s based upon an eighties song called “Something In the way you make me feel,” which was orignally performed by an artist called Stephanie Mills. At the time I thought it was gonna be their version of the Michael Jackson song of the same name, but of course it wasn’t. To me this is more or less a love song, and…..I think Will just wanted to make a song about two people making some kind of connection without really having to resort to sex, even though that’s what he wanted from her at the same time. Confused? Yeah, well…so am I.
Movement: The live drums are definitely in full effect here….in fact, unless they’ve sampled somebody else’s song, I’d say that this is quite an original tune, which I think was probably used to try and hype the crowd up, what with all the references to cities like “DC, London & Tokyo,” all of whom Will and his buddies wanted to “turn it out” with. At the same time they’re once again informing us that they’re not really huge fans of material things like diamond rings and Lexus cars. I don’t think that would exactly be the case now that they’re selling millions of records worldwide. I guess that’s to be expected though. This song also features a lyric that I always thought was absolutely fantastic: “You! Listen to what I’ve gotta say, let’s get together and form a parade.” How’s that for a rap act? See, normally they’be talking about shooting and killing, but these cats? Hell no! They are all about peace, love and unity. That is to be admired.
Karma: Now here’s where the Black Eyed Peas really get conscious. This song is all about how you can’t escape from karma and that you really need to treat folks with respect, otherwise something will come back and bite you in the ass. Very hard. They’re also reminding us that God is watching everything we do, so we’d better be careful. Conscious messages win every time. Definitely. On another note: Check out the way they sing the chorus from Blondie’s “One Way Or Another.” That’s definitely quite eeire to me. Unfortunately they don’t do songs like this one anymore. What’s worse is the fact that most of their fans will probably never know how good they were at making these kinds of statements. Not unless they go back & cop this album, which probably won’t even appeal to them anyway. Oh well, each to their own.
Be Free: I remember reading about this song in a free magazine that a certain record store in my area were handing out at the time. The author of the article was saying that they sampled “White Horse” by Laidback. At the time I hadn’t heard that song in so long, so I really wanted to hear what they’d done with that particular old school classic. I think they may’ve slowed it down ever so briefly. I could be wrong on that, though. Still, “Be Free” was always one of my favourite Black Eyed Peas tunes, simply because of that particular sample. Will definitely knows his shit, man. Believe me, this is what made me wanna sit up and take notice of what they were doing. Lyrically they’re just talking about wanting to be free to do their own things.
Say Goodbye: Another conscious one from the Black Eyed Peas. This one features them talking about the LA riots and how they had everyone in the entire universe in an uproar. Aside from that they’re just addressing the overall chaos in the world, I suppose. They were pretty much freaking out and panicking because so much bad stuff had gone on over the years and so many buildings had been built that all of the time we once had to change ourselves, or our surroundings was becoming quite limited… at least that was the case back in 1998. The song that backs ‘em up is called “Heaven & Hell On Earth,” which I think was sampled quite a lot back in the day. I remember Salt N Pepa using it at one point as well. It’s certainly quite an effective sample though, fits the overall feeling of the song like a glove.
Duet: Essentially this is just a forum for the guys to spread a whole bunch of positive vibes. There’s a guest rapper on this cut called Red Foo who says a hell of a lotta valid things, such as “you can be intelligent and never go to college” and “take a picture of your soul and get it laminated, put it in your wallet, next to your money.” I never thought I’d see the day when I’d hear a rap album with lyrics like this one. We need to hear more stuff like this nowadays. Definitely.
Communication: Live instrumentation is always a plus for me and this song is choc full of that stuff. Check out the live drums. Dope. It also appears that the guitarist is skankin…meaning that he’s playing somewhat of a reggae riff. As far as the lyrics are concerned, I don’t think there’s anything too deep going on here, it just seems to be them talking about how original and positive they are. Just a bit of fun, I suppose.
What It Is: Another old school classic they’ve decided to sample – excuse me it’s actually an interpolation of “Funkin For Jamaica” by Tom Browne. They’ve definitely slowed this one down though. Kim Hill sang the chorus, which originally was “Jamaica funk, that’s what it is, gotta get into you.” Thats now become “No need to front, that’s what it is, gotta get into you.” Why’s there no need to front? Because you’re a wack ass rapper. In fact, you’re wacker than that dude rhymin in the Pringles commercial….or so says Will.I.Aint. Still, it makes for decent enough listening.
¿Que Dices?: In one of the gameshow skits on this album, the contestants are asked “What does Que Dices mean?” Some of the incorrect answers include “Cheese Tortilla melt” and “Cure your dices.” Of course it is in fact Spanish for “What did you say?” Being an Aussie Italo, I knew exactly what it meant cause we have a phrase in dialect Italian which is very similar. Anyways, as far as the song’s concerned, it’s a bit reggae inspired to my ears, although it was probably supposed to be more Latin based. That said, there are samples of some guy goin’ “Que? Que dices?” Other than that it just seems to be another song to get the crowd hyped up. I think it’s a cool track. By the same token, this song always reminds me of this one incident in my life where I was coming out of school for the day and this weed smokin’ fool who dropped out was blastin this song in his car and as he sped away, he screamed out my name along with such intelligent and encouraging remarks as “ya dickhead!!! You still look like a fuckwit!!” Just great. What a winner.
A8: The intro to this next one sees them poking fun at all of the hip hop heads who are dissin’ ‘em cause they dance around on stage and do “Las Vegas shit.” From there we’re treated to quite a laidback type o’ jam, which is really all about how they have a plan to do their own thing and in the process give folks what they want & need. Of course they’re also questioning the other MCs out there who are putting them down and what not. The song’s okay.
Love Won’t Wait: For some reason, I found myself strangely attracted to this song, simply because of the female singer who was featured on it. She had that real cool raspy voice – the likes of which I’d never really heard before. Hearing that up against those live drums totally made my day. A few months later, I saw that same woman on TV singin’ about “you’d better get up get out and do somethin’!!” And her name was Macy Gray. Yup. That’s her all right. It was this song that introduced me to her. Lyrically, this song is all about a woman who has left her man cause of the way in which she’s being treated by him. As you can see I’ve always loved it. Great stuff.
Head Bobs: For a while there, I thought that this was their first attempt at creating a rock tune. I guess it isn’t really, although the musicians are indeed playing a much harder, almost aggressive type of tune. I think they only really made this song to tell us all to nod our heads to their funky hip hop rhymes. That’s about all I can say about this track….doesn’t really seem to be saying anything much….although there is that lyric about how “we do it from the heart like blood,” which I think is very cool. They’re obviously passionate about what they do.
Positivity: “We much more than you think we are!!!!” Ah yes….I forgot all about this briliant song right here, which also talks about the whole Eastcoast/Westcoast situation and how a lot of rap fans out there were really taking all of that seriously at the time. Something that was quite scary to Will.I.Am especially. Another thing he talks about is how God gave us all lives, yet some of us get sidetracked by Lucifer as he distorts our minds. There are so many great lyrics in this song, in particular “I ain’t talkin about no black man, no white man or a Jew man, cause the devil can exist in every human” and “even though we got problems, I hope we find some way to solve ‘em. We gotta keep it on the positive.” And that’s exactly what they’re bringing us – positivity. They included a live version of this one on the B-Side of one of their more commercial singles….I think it was “Hey Mama” and during that performance, Will was trying to get the audience to really listen to his message. And rightly so, because it’s absolutely valid. This song concludes with a very cool instrumental piece, which is included as a “bonus track” or a hidden track if you like. I also remember seeing a comment on their old website about how they’d sampled some Latin song in “Positivity”. The fan who left the comment wasn’t too impressed with what Will had done. Will reponded by telling them not to be sad about their use of…..whatever song it was. Samples aside, this is a great way to end the album.
Verdict: Overall, I still think this is a really great first effort from the guys and guess what? If you get yourself a good pair of headphones along with a decent copy of this album and you really LISTEN to what they’re saying, you just might think twice before you write them off as a bunch of Native Tongues wanna bes, or as some group writing cornyass pop songs like “My humps” and “Don’t funk with my heart.” Yes, those songs are garbage, but the record label made ‘em do that kind of shit. If they had’ve stayed the way they were, they would’ve lost their contracts and most likely would’ve fallen into obscurity in the process, which is a shame cause these dudes were definitely saying some valid shit here. now go forth and pay very close attention to the socially conscious messages combined with the live instrumentation.
