The four singers behind the multi-platinum Black Eyed Peas – will.i.am, Fergie, apl.de.ap and Taboo – each bring their own style to the band’s funk-driven albums. But to maintain the group’s signature eclecticism, the group still enlists an array of collaborators.
On Tuesday’s “Monkey Business,” the long-awaited follow-up to the breakthrough 2003 album “Elephunk,” the Peas work with everyone from Sting to Earth, Wind & Fire to Justin Timberlake (previously featured on the hit single “Where is the Love?” from “Elephunk”).
But the group’s biggest coup – none other than the Godfather of Soul.
“James Brown was sort of an impossible goal because he hadn’t really collaborated with anybody,” says frontman and producer will.i.am. “When I asked his manager if he’d work with us, I was kind of joking – I didn’t think he’d do it.
“Two days later they called up and said, ‘Do you have an idea of what you’d like to do with Mr. Brown?’ I said yeah and sent it over to him. They called back and said they loved it.”
The end result is “They Don’t Want Music,” a song bemoaning the loss of soul in today’s urban music, where Brown can be heard using his classic cross between exhaling and grunting to funk up lines like “They don’t want the music! They don’t know how to use it. Huh!” over classic funk beats and ’70s “Soul Train” horns.
The hardest working man in show business even penned the line, “You have to rock with the funk/You got to roll with the funk.”
Working with Brown, “was like a history lesson, sitting there, talking to him and knowing that this man had been through the Black Power movement, racism in America…it was dope, it was so fresh,” says will.
The mixed repertoire of guest artists only adds to the Peas’ ability to appeal to a mixed fan base. They’ll be headlining Harlem’s Apollo Theater on Thursday night, with acclaimed rapper Talib Kweli as the opening act; but in August, the Peas will open for the ultimate white boy rock band – the Rolling Stones.
Will attributes the Peas’ sound to the fact that they’re from Los Angeles, not because the band itself is an ethnic smorgasbord.
“L.A.’s a melting pot of the whole world. It’s the only place in the world where you can go from Little Tokyo to Little Korea, four blocks out it’s Chinatown, then Little Jewish town, Little Ethiopia and Little Armenia and then Santa Monica where it’s all surfers,” will says.
