Going hip-hop with the Black Eyed Peas

There are now a lot of people, mostly young, who have been complaining that the local concert scene has gone geriatric. Can’t really blame them. The year is not yet over and unbelievably, we have already had Andy Williams, The Cascades, Paul Anka and would you believe, The Four Aces! There are more slated to come before 2006 bows out. Maybe it is indeed time for some sounds and sights that are new and different.

So I say, time now for those carpers against the oldies but still goodies, to get ready for something young and new. They had better brace themselves for the impending arrival of the Black Eyed Peas (BEP). The popular hip-hop group has visited before but this concert is the big one. The BEP is scheduled to take on the Araneta Coliseum on July 27 in what promises to be an evening of great, rapping dance music with bits of rock and pop thrown in.

The show is part of the Black Eyed Peas’ Monkey Business tour. Monkey Business is the Peas’ latest album and it has already sold over three million copies. It contains the big hits Don’t Phunk with My Heart, My Humps, Don’t Lie, My Style, They Don’t Want Music, Gone Going, Dum Diddly and Pump It. Before Monkey Business, the Peas also hit it big with Where is the Love, a great collaboration with Justin Timberlake, plus Let’s Get Started, Shut Up, Hey Mama, Hands Up, Smells Like Funk, The Boogie That Be and other cuts from the two million-selling breakthrough album Elephunk.

While it cannot be denied that the Grammy winning Peas can really dish out the hits, what truly makes the group special for us is the fact that one of its members Apl.de.ap or Allen Pineda is a full-blooded Filipino who loves balut. He was born here in Pampanga but moved to the US when he was 14. That was where he got into music and can be rightly described as the most successful Filipino music artist in the world today.

Apl’s citizenship is American, of course, but he’s all we’ve got in the field of hip-hop and I am happy that unlike most kids around, this guy simply adores being Pinoy. As a boy, Apl was dissed by other kids in Pampanga as baluga. Am I glad he never took that against us fellow Pinoys. On the other hand, why should he? I can bet he is very thankful for being baluga. If he were a mestizo who looks like Ricky Martin, he’ll never be with the Black Eyed Peas.

Not only that. While he does elicit lots of admiration for his success, what I find really commendable and sweet about Apl is that he makes it a point to show off his Filipino roots in his music. I didn’t know he was local until I found The Api song in Elephunk. I was all amazement when I heard this foreign hip-hop group rapping and singing the chorus of one cut in Tagalog! I knew there had to be a Filipino behind that tune and it turned out to be Apl. He did it again and it was even better with the track Bebot in Monkey Business. Can’t wait to hear what he will do in Filipino in the next Black Eyed Peas album.

It is also great that the other members of the BEP indulge Apl’s patriotism and join his Tagalog binge although they might not have a clue as to what he is rapping about. These other Peas are will.i.am, or William Adams, who started the group with Apl in Los Angeles way back in 1990; Taboo or Jaime Gomez and the lovely Fergie. Born Stacy Ferguson, she was formerly a member of the female teen band Wild Orchid. She is at present one of the top female music artists in the world, a sex symbol, pop icon and budding actress. Take note, Fergie was the lounge singer in the disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure.

You can be pretty sure that The Black Eyed Peas’ Monkey Business concert at the Big Dome will be really big. The concert is a Viva Concert and Events production backed by Dickies and Skechers. Tickets for the show are available at all SM Ticketnet outlets and the Araneta Coliseum Box Office. Ticket prices are P5,000; P4,000; P3,000, P1,500 and P500. Call 911-5555 for inquiries and reservations.