Songoftheday 3/28/24 - What's wrong with the world, Mama? People livin' like they ain't got no mamas'...

 

 

"Where Is The Love?" - Black Eyed Peas with Justin Timberlake

from the album Elephunk (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #8 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 22

 

Today's song comes from the Black Eyed Peas, who started out in the late 1980s as a dance/music group with friends Will "will.i.am" Adams and Allen "apl.de.ap" Pineda Lindo and a couple others originally under a couple different monikers. The act was originally signed by gangsta rapper Eazy-E formerly of N.W.A. to his Ruthless label, but after a debut album got put aside and Eazy died from AIDS in 1995, Adams and Pineda Lindo reinvented themselves as the Black Eyed Peas, adding a third rapper Jaime "Taboo" Gomez and singer Kim Hill. They gathered a local following with their west coast jazzy hip-hop style like the counterpart to the Roots, and were signed by Interscope Records, where they released their debut album Behind The Front in 1998. The record went to #129 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #37 on the R&B Albums list in Billboard magazine, but none of the singles made any impact, though one of them, "Joints & Jams" which was featured in the movie Bulworth, became a minor hit in the United Kingdom at #53. 

 

The group released their sophomore effort Bridging The Gap in 2000, which saw Hill leaving the Peas mid-recording. It did a little better than the debut by reaching #67 on the Billboard 200 and #40 on the R&B Albums list. The first "hype" track put to radio, "BEP Empire", blipped on to Billboard's Rap Songs chart for a week at #44.  That was followed by "Weekends" featuring Canadian electronica artist Esthero, which scored their first showing on Billboard's R&B Singles chart at #73, while randomly slipping on to the German singles chart for a week at #100. Lastly, "Request Line", which featured "I Try" singer Macy Gray, stopped halfway up the R&B Singles chart at #51, but landed their first Hot 100 placing at #63 while getting to #34 on the Mainstream Top-40 radio chart. It also was an international hit hitting the top-40 in New Zealand (#10), Australia (#21), and the United Kingdom (#31). 

The Peas finally settled in with a new steady female vocal member with Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson, who was performing professionally since her childhood, doing voiceover work for the Peanuts cartoon TV special series as "Sally", then as a longtime cast member of the musical show Kids Incorporated. Fergie then formed a female vocal group Wild Orchid with castmate Renee Sands and Stefanie Ridel. Their eponymous debut album put three singles on to the Hot 100, with the second of them, "Talk To Me", coming close to reaching the top-40 at #48 in 1997. Originally brought in as a featured singer, Interscope head Jimmy Iovine convinced the group to bring her on as a proper bandmate, helping to morph the act into a mainstream pop act. 

On Interscope using major-label A&M promotion/distribution, the Black Eyes Peas as a cemented foursome with Fergie released Elephunk in the summer of 2003. The lead single from the set was the song "Where Is The Love?". While the rap verses were written by will.i.am, apl,de,ap,. and Taboo, the chorus was penned by George Pajon and Justin Timberlake, the latter who was at the time riding high after his solo debut album Justified proved he could detach from his former boy-band *NSYNC quite successfully. However his label didn't want to oversaturate the radio market, and while Timberlake sang backup on the track, he wasn't credited on the label. The lyrics have the trio going political yet not preachy about the ills of the land from the CIA to rival gangs, as well as the arms race and the effects of the children of the time. It really seems like a continuation of the City High hit "What Would You Do" from a few years earlier but with more aspirations. But really, their words hit harder than on first glance. The production from will.i.am and Ron Fair brings in Fair's touch with orchestral sounds yet keeping it current with the pacing and set-back percussion. All and all it was a "great and important"-sounding record that was Frankensteined to break through the mainstream pop bubble, and it did, becoming their first major success. The music video had the foursome (with no Justin in sight) creating light anarchy with stickers throughout Los Angeles...

"Where Is The Love?" became the Black Eyed Peas' first top-40 hit on Billboard's Hot 100, breaking into the top ten in August of 2003, and reaching #19 on their Rap Songs list, while stalling down at #82 on their R&B Singles chart (a clear example of the group's redirection). On the radio, the song spent seven weeks at #1 on Billboard's Mainstream Top-40 chart, #36 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, #9 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic list, and #12 on the Dance Airplay chart. Internationally, the single was an even better success, topping the charts in the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada (sales), Australia, Austria, Belgium (#1 Flanders/#19 Wallonia), Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, and Switzerland, and placed in the top-40 in Spain (#2), Croatia (#2), Italy (#3), Hungary (#3), Czechia (#3), France (#16), and Greece (#30). The Elephunk album, which was released in June of that year, crested at #14 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #23 on the R&B Albums list, spending over two years on each chart and going on to sell over two million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2004, "Where Is The Love?" was nominated for Record Of The Year, losing to Coldplay's "Clocks". It was also up for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (which Justin Timberlake was included), which went home with Beyonce and Jay-Z's "Crazy In Love".

The Black Eyed Peas (and of course Justin) as well as the Elephunk album will be back to the series.

(8/10)

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Here's the Peas appearing on The View (yes, it's that mainstream)...

Next up, from the Live 8 charity concert extravaganza in 2005...

Two years later, Justin Timberlake brought them on to sing together on one of his shows...

In 2016, the Peas revised "Where Is The Love" for a charity single, which was a modest international hit and included a myriad of guests including a briefly-reunited Fergie...

lastly, the group enlisted Jennifer Hudson for another try at the song in 2020 to spur people to fight the orange powers that be...

Up tomorrow: A rap newcomer wants some inflation perhaps.