Post by RIVERLOVER on Jan 16, 2005 3:48:47 GMT 2
I found this interview on the official BEP messageboard. I did a little copy editing in the process. Enjoy:
We interview Black Eyed Peas
Music Ed(itor) Evan Milton talks to the fourth Pea, Ms. Mama herself, Fergie about Elephunk, being idiots on stage, Monkey Business… and those dance moves.
I interview Fergie as the final results of the American elections are being tallied, but after contender John Kerry has conceded defeat to George W. Bush. The Black Eyed Peas are on tour; Fergie is in Iowa, that crucial swing-state of the presidential race. "So it's your fault?" I query. "I plead the Fifth," says the newest - and only female - member of the hip-hop funk machine behind Elephunk, and you just know it's going to be a good interview.
First up, I want to know if it's true that BEP invite local breakdancers onto their stage during tours, and Fergie pleads another kind of Fifth. "B-Boys? Yeah," she says, "Sometimes we do, and sometimes we don't - it depends on the show and the venue - but we encourage b-boys and b-girls to come along in case it’s one of those nights.
“It's great; we go around the world and act like idiots on stage... it's like a big fraternity and I'm 'lil sis to all of that"
Is it true that - as is widely mentioned in interviews across the 'net - that she first sang with the BEP at an open session after Justin Timberlake took the mic? "That's completely false," she says, "I don't know where anyone heard that."
Here’s the real tale: "In 1998, I went to see the Black Eyed Peas show, and I met Will; after the show, we exchanged numbers. I was in a group at the time, but when I left the group, we hooked back up again - I wanted them (BEP) to do work on my solo project. They were working on Elephunk and they needed a female voice for ‘Shut Up.’ Our mutual friend Dante introduced us again. They just needed me for a background part, but then it ended up that they'd call me for all the female parts - I ended up doing all the girl parts and then we started to become a family and it just worked."
Comments:
Fergie, BP (Before Peas)
Very little is known - or written - about Fergie before she joined BEP. Stacy Ferguson was in a three-piece vocal harmony group, singing old-style soulful tunes a la The Supremes and En Vogue. The plan was to take the soul influence further, but as groups like The Spice Girls came out and made more and more money, there was pressure from record labels: "They geared us more towards a more pop infused sound, and that drew us further and further away from our vision," says Fergie. She was torn, but "stayed in it to be loyal to the girls" although, she confesses, "my heart was not in it." Eventually she took the plunge and moved to go solo, along with a great sense of release and freedom. "It took its toll on me," she says.
In the Elephunk credits, Fergie thanks her therapist. I ask why. She hesitates, but I note that if you write something like that in a multi-platinum selling CD, people are going to want to know why.
"Lots, trust me!" she retorts. "Being in the group I was in, I was forced to do things artistically. I just kept burying those feelings, and that tends to all bunch up inside - that's what happened to me. I needed help in dealing with me so that I could be good to other people, and honest to myself. I was always an actor - I was born into being a child actor - and I always made sure everyone else was OK. I was always burying my feelings. I needed to learn who I was, and that meant a lot of going back."
Boldly going where no woman…
What is it like being the female voice, the one who has to "do all the girl parts," in an established hip-hop outfit?
"Oh, it's great; we go around the world and act like idiots on stage; we have mock fights on stage - guy vs. girl - it's over-exaggerated. It's a lot of fun and I love being the girl in the group - the excitement of the guys going out on stage, it's like a big fraternity and I'm 'lil sis to all of that.
“Sometimes I do miss girl companionship; there are some things the guys don't understand - I enjoy the calls to my mom (or) sister a lot more, just to vent girl stuff."
But what about the hip-hop fronting, and the tradition in rap lyrics of women being equated with booty?
Fergie pauses for a moment to consider, then answers, "I feel that hip-hop and the music of rap is very much street-reporting. The rappers is the street reporter, saying what they see - some are socially conscious, some talk about what they see in the society and what's going on around them; some talk about going to clubs because [laughs] y'know, that's what you do. People talk about this and that, about being a gangster: song writing is a basic outlet for your feelings, and I have no problem with poetic license and exaggerating."
As for disempowering lyrics, she brushes aside the concern: "I don't surround myself with men who are going to disrespect me in any way; I choose people who will not belittle me as a woman. At the same time, if other people want to write songs or rap songs about, y'know, people with big body parts, then that's them, that's their song."
Riding the Elephunk
A full year after the album's release, songs off Elephunk are still charting (think summer 2003's "Where Is The Love" and summer 2004's "Hey Mama" - with "Let's Get Retarded" (re-christened "Let's Get It Started" for radio) and the epic "Shut Up" along the way. What's it like still performing these songs after more than a year?
"It's still acing; I'm still not sick of them. We get to travel the world and be idiots on stage - this is a fun band to be in. I feel so blessed; to have four singles like that - five actually, because in the Philippines we released 'The Apl Song.' To have the crowds appreciate you like that is nice; where they can't wait to see you: I was in a group before and people did not want to come and see us, we had to get out there and persuade them. To have people appreciate you, and all the hard work you do, especially for so long on one album, that is a blessing."
Of course, it falls to Fergie not only to keep up with Will.i.am, Apl.de.ap and Taboo, and "do all the girl parts," but also to shake that famous "Hey Mama", MTV Video Award winning, abdomen on throughout the stage show. Other rappers employ a bevy of dancers; Fergie has to hold the stage herself. How does that feel?
"You know what, I don’t mind taking that challenge. I've been working in this business since I was a little girl; I've always been a performer. It comes naturally to me, I've always sung, and always danced - this is the perfect position for me because I would have been doing all that anyway."
"You know what the really challenging part about it was? When I first joined the band we didn't rehearse, and I was just thrown up on stage with three guys who had been performing together for ten years. Then, I had to figure out where to fit in - and the way they dance is just unbelievable, so it was a little intimidating. Number three; I had never performed with a live band before, so I had to overcome a lot of fear. Metaphorically, I had to fall on my face a few times before getting it right."
Fergie recounts the simple mechanics of it - not being used to the acoustics on stage; struggling to hear the guitar and find her pitch; to hear herself in the on-stage mix and having to adapt to all of what she calls "the live aesthetics." Now, she says, she would never choose to perform without a live band: "Once in a while, out of love, I might do just a DJ gig, but once you have live, you can't go back."
Every place got a ghetto
The Black Eyed Peas opened the 2004 Brit Awards; their brand of hip-hop, although certainly US-derived, is more global than many of their stateside contemporaries. What was it like representing to British and European audiences?
"Performing at the Brits was amazing. The UK has been very good to us - we recorded most of the new record (Monkey Business, due in 2005) in London. We have a lot of love for the UK."
"As far as differences (go), hip-hop started in the South Bronx; now it's all over: Europe, Australia, Asia… Hip-hop is everywhere now, people are being reporters on what's going on the streets, and it's a different country so the hip-hop is different. I listen to Mike Skinner (The Streets) a lot, and he uses different slang; he uses it like it's in his world - just like Dizzee Rascal (2003's surprise UK Mercury winner)."
"We have been to the Philippines (Apl.de.ap's homeland) and the hip-hop beat is different there - they are different lives talking, with influences from different root music - but it's all hip-hop."
The boogie that be
Stacy Ferguson was on the verge of trying to start a solo career when she joined the Black Eyed Peas; she's an equal quarter of the group now, but how much does she have to do with creating the actual words and music she performs with BEP?
"This band has been together for a long time; I give my opinions on what I like and don't like, but it mostly starts with Will. The library in his head is so vast: he moulds me - I learn from him all the time. We're going back to old fashioned sounds, to the places where music comes from."
And what is Fergie listening to, what acts does she have her eye on?
"God, that's a hard question… I'm listening to some oldies, like Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington. I'm really into that now for the freestyle section of the show. That's my turn to interpret the music in my way, which is scatting. I listen to the greats to hear how they did it."
On the current scene, Fergie recommends Jill Scott and Kanye West - "he's done so much; hip hop derives from soul singing, and he knows that."
We interview Black Eyed Peas
Music Ed(itor) Evan Milton talks to the fourth Pea, Ms. Mama herself, Fergie about Elephunk, being idiots on stage, Monkey Business… and those dance moves.
I interview Fergie as the final results of the American elections are being tallied, but after contender John Kerry has conceded defeat to George W. Bush. The Black Eyed Peas are on tour; Fergie is in Iowa, that crucial swing-state of the presidential race. "So it's your fault?" I query. "I plead the Fifth," says the newest - and only female - member of the hip-hop funk machine behind Elephunk, and you just know it's going to be a good interview.
First up, I want to know if it's true that BEP invite local breakdancers onto their stage during tours, and Fergie pleads another kind of Fifth. "B-Boys? Yeah," she says, "Sometimes we do, and sometimes we don't - it depends on the show and the venue - but we encourage b-boys and b-girls to come along in case it’s one of those nights.
“It's great; we go around the world and act like idiots on stage... it's like a big fraternity and I'm 'lil sis to all of that"
Is it true that - as is widely mentioned in interviews across the 'net - that she first sang with the BEP at an open session after Justin Timberlake took the mic? "That's completely false," she says, "I don't know where anyone heard that."
Here’s the real tale: "In 1998, I went to see the Black Eyed Peas show, and I met Will; after the show, we exchanged numbers. I was in a group at the time, but when I left the group, we hooked back up again - I wanted them (BEP) to do work on my solo project. They were working on Elephunk and they needed a female voice for ‘Shut Up.’ Our mutual friend Dante introduced us again. They just needed me for a background part, but then it ended up that they'd call me for all the female parts - I ended up doing all the girl parts and then we started to become a family and it just worked."
Comments:
Fergie, BP (Before Peas)
Very little is known - or written - about Fergie before she joined BEP. Stacy Ferguson was in a three-piece vocal harmony group, singing old-style soulful tunes a la The Supremes and En Vogue. The plan was to take the soul influence further, but as groups like The Spice Girls came out and made more and more money, there was pressure from record labels: "They geared us more towards a more pop infused sound, and that drew us further and further away from our vision," says Fergie. She was torn, but "stayed in it to be loyal to the girls" although, she confesses, "my heart was not in it." Eventually she took the plunge and moved to go solo, along with a great sense of release and freedom. "It took its toll on me," she says.
In the Elephunk credits, Fergie thanks her therapist. I ask why. She hesitates, but I note that if you write something like that in a multi-platinum selling CD, people are going to want to know why.
"Lots, trust me!" she retorts. "Being in the group I was in, I was forced to do things artistically. I just kept burying those feelings, and that tends to all bunch up inside - that's what happened to me. I needed help in dealing with me so that I could be good to other people, and honest to myself. I was always an actor - I was born into being a child actor - and I always made sure everyone else was OK. I was always burying my feelings. I needed to learn who I was, and that meant a lot of going back."
Boldly going where no woman…
What is it like being the female voice, the one who has to "do all the girl parts," in an established hip-hop outfit?
"Oh, it's great; we go around the world and act like idiots on stage; we have mock fights on stage - guy vs. girl - it's over-exaggerated. It's a lot of fun and I love being the girl in the group - the excitement of the guys going out on stage, it's like a big fraternity and I'm 'lil sis to all of that.
“Sometimes I do miss girl companionship; there are some things the guys don't understand - I enjoy the calls to my mom (or) sister a lot more, just to vent girl stuff."
But what about the hip-hop fronting, and the tradition in rap lyrics of women being equated with booty?
Fergie pauses for a moment to consider, then answers, "I feel that hip-hop and the music of rap is very much street-reporting. The rappers is the street reporter, saying what they see - some are socially conscious, some talk about what they see in the society and what's going on around them; some talk about going to clubs because [laughs] y'know, that's what you do. People talk about this and that, about being a gangster: song writing is a basic outlet for your feelings, and I have no problem with poetic license and exaggerating."
As for disempowering lyrics, she brushes aside the concern: "I don't surround myself with men who are going to disrespect me in any way; I choose people who will not belittle me as a woman. At the same time, if other people want to write songs or rap songs about, y'know, people with big body parts, then that's them, that's their song."
Riding the Elephunk
A full year after the album's release, songs off Elephunk are still charting (think summer 2003's "Where Is The Love" and summer 2004's "Hey Mama" - with "Let's Get Retarded" (re-christened "Let's Get It Started" for radio) and the epic "Shut Up" along the way. What's it like still performing these songs after more than a year?
"It's still acing; I'm still not sick of them. We get to travel the world and be idiots on stage - this is a fun band to be in. I feel so blessed; to have four singles like that - five actually, because in the Philippines we released 'The Apl Song.' To have the crowds appreciate you like that is nice; where they can't wait to see you: I was in a group before and people did not want to come and see us, we had to get out there and persuade them. To have people appreciate you, and all the hard work you do, especially for so long on one album, that is a blessing."
Of course, it falls to Fergie not only to keep up with Will.i.am, Apl.de.ap and Taboo, and "do all the girl parts," but also to shake that famous "Hey Mama", MTV Video Award winning, abdomen on throughout the stage show. Other rappers employ a bevy of dancers; Fergie has to hold the stage herself. How does that feel?
"You know what, I don’t mind taking that challenge. I've been working in this business since I was a little girl; I've always been a performer. It comes naturally to me, I've always sung, and always danced - this is the perfect position for me because I would have been doing all that anyway."
"You know what the really challenging part about it was? When I first joined the band we didn't rehearse, and I was just thrown up on stage with three guys who had been performing together for ten years. Then, I had to figure out where to fit in - and the way they dance is just unbelievable, so it was a little intimidating. Number three; I had never performed with a live band before, so I had to overcome a lot of fear. Metaphorically, I had to fall on my face a few times before getting it right."
Fergie recounts the simple mechanics of it - not being used to the acoustics on stage; struggling to hear the guitar and find her pitch; to hear herself in the on-stage mix and having to adapt to all of what she calls "the live aesthetics." Now, she says, she would never choose to perform without a live band: "Once in a while, out of love, I might do just a DJ gig, but once you have live, you can't go back."
Every place got a ghetto
The Black Eyed Peas opened the 2004 Brit Awards; their brand of hip-hop, although certainly US-derived, is more global than many of their stateside contemporaries. What was it like representing to British and European audiences?
"Performing at the Brits was amazing. The UK has been very good to us - we recorded most of the new record (Monkey Business, due in 2005) in London. We have a lot of love for the UK."
"As far as differences (go), hip-hop started in the South Bronx; now it's all over: Europe, Australia, Asia… Hip-hop is everywhere now, people are being reporters on what's going on the streets, and it's a different country so the hip-hop is different. I listen to Mike Skinner (The Streets) a lot, and he uses different slang; he uses it like it's in his world - just like Dizzee Rascal (2003's surprise UK Mercury winner)."
"We have been to the Philippines (Apl.de.ap's homeland) and the hip-hop beat is different there - they are different lives talking, with influences from different root music - but it's all hip-hop."
The boogie that be
Stacy Ferguson was on the verge of trying to start a solo career when she joined the Black Eyed Peas; she's an equal quarter of the group now, but how much does she have to do with creating the actual words and music she performs with BEP?
"This band has been together for a long time; I give my opinions on what I like and don't like, but it mostly starts with Will. The library in his head is so vast: he moulds me - I learn from him all the time. We're going back to old fashioned sounds, to the places where music comes from."
And what is Fergie listening to, what acts does she have her eye on?
"God, that's a hard question… I'm listening to some oldies, like Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington. I'm really into that now for the freestyle section of the show. That's my turn to interpret the music in my way, which is scatting. I listen to the greats to hear how they did it."
On the current scene, Fergie recommends Jill Scott and Kanye West - "he's done so much; hip hop derives from soul singing, and he knows that."
