THE BLACK EYED PEAS CASE

In America, race and racism are very delicate topics, since a lasting slavery era took place there, and black people suffered a lot because of the treatment the received back then. Social and racial segregation were commonly seen in almost everything there: Television, food, territory, politics, religion and even music. I have already written about how there’s color in music, and how in America we can see several examples about that when we go out there and look at the kind of people who listen to certain kind of music. In a conventional way, we could assume that white people have some genres for them, as lack, Latin or Asian have some genres for each of them. In a conventional way, we could think that depending on your skin color, you should or would grow up listening at certain kind of music, and if you got talent, you should or would probably make it as an artist of that music. As time has gone by, people are facing and understanding different cultures, and it leads to the fact that we cannot be sure about color in music anymore, however, we can still see barriers that difficult people to success with different kinds of music, and unfortunately, the main barrier seems to be your skin color. We can see exceptions, and the most interesting case about how race is not supposed to be a barrier, is the worldwide known hip hop group: The Black Eyed Peas:

Throughout the History of humanity, and in a more representative way, throughout the History of the United States of America, we have seen how different races and cultures gather geographically or musically. Music, as religion, has become a difference maker in the American society, and every ethnicity behave different and listen to different kinds of music. There are even stereotypes which have been created around different types of music, say, hip hop to black people, salsa to Latin people, or country music to white people. We are used to watch black guys rapping and being successful with R&B or hip hop hits, and we are used to watch white people being successful with Rock and Roll, or Country music as well, so we have grown with all these stereotypes that have been created there, and we also know that it’s really difficult to overcome this kind of barriers. There is a more deep background on this topic: the way people are growing up there. Black communities are really closed among them, and they have created that barrier after all the suffering they had to deal with in the past, when they were slaves, treated like rare specimens, like tools. Even nowadays, black people still feel discriminated, and they are not the only group which feels this, because Latin and Asian people still deal with this discrimination. In America, there are neighborhoods full of black people only, as there are neighborhoods full of Latin, white or Asian people: they grow up separated and that put some conditions over the music they start to like. 

Certain examples come out with the charts: According to Billboard, the hottest pop songs are performed by artists like Taylor Swift, Maroon 5, Swedish House Mafia and Calvin Harris: all white people. The hottest R&B/ Hip hop hits are performed by artists like Drake, Jay Z, Lil’ Wayne, Rihanna, Alicia Keys, etc., all African Americans. When we go to Latin music, even though this will look pretty obvious, the hottest songs are performed by people like Daddy Yankee, Romeo Santos, Don Omar, etc., all Latinos.  

William James Adams, known by will.i.am, is a black guy, born in Los Angeles (California), and one of the founders of the concept of the group we know as The Black Eyed Peas. Allan Pineda, known as apl.de.ap, is a Philippine man, and cofounder of the first concept of this group: Atban klann. The next member is Jaime Luis Gómez, known as Taboo on stage, he was born in LA, but his father is Mexican, so he has clear Latin roots. The last member of the group, who was included in the last place (2002) as the main voice, is Stacy Ann Ferguson, whose artistic name is Fergie; she has Irish and Scottish roots, including the fact that her parents and her were born in California.

We link hip hop to black people, and even though we can see exceptions like Eminem, The Beastie Boys or Fat Joe, it is inevitable for them to be associated, because of all the reasons I have already mentioned. It is really important to point out The BEP importance here, because this is a hip hop group conformed by a black guy, a half-Latin guy, a half-Asian man and a white lady: explosive.