Trivia / The Black Eyed Peas

aka: Black Eyed Peas

• Banned in China: In 2009, the Malaysian government declared that Muslim citizens would be prohibited from attending the Black Eyed Peas' concert there on the grounds that it was being sponsored by Guinness, a beer company (Islam prohibits alcohol in any form). The government later rescinded the ban and allowed Muslims to buy tickets.
• Breakthrough Hit: "Where is the Love?" was their claim to fame and was their first song to chart in almost every country.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: The music video for “Where Is The Love?” briefly shows some kids playing Postal 2 on a console. Postal 2 was only released for Windows, macOS, and Linux computers.
• Creator Killer: The critical mauling of their 2010 album The Beginning, along with their poorly-received Super Bowl halftime performance and the failure of their video game The Black Eyed Peas Experience, badly damaged their career and led to them going on hiatus in 2011. Since then, will.i.am has had success and failure as a solo artist, falling into obscurity in his native US but remaining popular outside it due to his involvement as one of the four coaches in the UK and Australian versions of The Voice. There were two songs featuring everyone but Fergie in 2015 and "#WheresTheLove", a reworked version of "Where is the Love?" (which did have Fergie back and had several featured artists), but a follow-up album wouldn't be released until 2018, to very little fanfare, though it was well-received by critics for its Revisiting the Roots sound for the group.
• Creator Backlash: Will.i.am and the group as a whole avoid talking about "My Humps", and they don't play it live anymore.
• Distanced from Current Events: The Middle East reference in "Hey Mama" was replaced with a (somewhat) more innocuous line in the radio version likely as the Iraq War was going on at the time.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: "Let's Get Retarded" from Elephunk was replaced with the radio edit "Let's Get It Started" on streaming services, much to the chagrin of those who saw a Double Standard in censoring an ableist slur while letting violent references, sex, materialism, colorful language, and other slurs slip through.
• Old Shame: "My Humps". The band retired the song and don't play it live anymore and even Will.i.am isn't very confident on talking about it either. will.i.am said that "it got to the point where we didn't want to play "My Humps" no more. You know, 'cause, "I met a girl down at the disco", I just didn't want to say that no more, lyrically..."
• The Pete Best: Kim Hill was the female vocalist when they released their debut album in 1998. By 2000, however, she left and in 2001 she was replaced by Fergie, and their image changed. Only the more dedicated fans remember Kim Hill, especially seeing as she wasn't on any of the album covers.
• Similarly Named Works: "Just Can't Get Enough" is not a cover of the Depeche Mode song of the same name and was confused as such by some fans.
• What Could Have Been: According to will.i.am on an episode of Behind the Music, when they first decided to go into a more pop-oriented sound (i.e. when they brought in Fergie), they originally offered the lead singer position to Nicole Scherzinger (later of the Pussycat Dolls.) Her boyfriend (Nick Hexum of 311) advised her against it, since she wanted to be a solo artist.
• Write What You Know: "The APL Song" is a brief autobiographical tale of apl.de.ap's early life in the Philippines prior to co-founding the Peas with will.i.am, and return to his home country after a decade, culminating in a line referring to his younger brother Arnel who died from suicide, where he lamented how he "wish he could have helped him out".

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