Black Eyed Peas
An underground L.A. hip-hop crew added a singer named Fergie and became the sound coming out of every speaker in the 2000s. From "Where Is the Love?" to "I Gotta Feeling," the Black Eyed Peas owned graduation parties, sports arenas, and wedding dance floors for the better part of a decade.
will.i.am, apl.de.ap, and Taboo formed the Black Eyed Peas in Los Angeles as an alternative hip-hop act, and their first two Interscope albums — Behind the Front (1998) and Bridging the Gap (2000) — earned respect and modest sales. They were good, and they were niche. That was the trajectory everyone expected.
Then, in 2002, Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson joined as lead singer, and the math changed completely. Elephunk arrived in 2003, and the group wasn't alternative anymore — they were everywhere. "Where Is the Love?" featuring Justin Timberlake reached No. 8 in the US and No. 1 in more than a dozen countries, spending six weeks atop the UK chart, where it became the biggest-selling single of 2003; "Let's Get It Started" followed it out of the same album. Monkey Business (2005) went triple platinum behind "My Humps" and "Don't Phunk with My Heart." The sound was genre-agnostic, radio-dominating, wedding-ready — and inescapable.
The E.N.D. (2009) completed the ascent. "Boom Boom Pow" and "I Gotta Feeling" held the Hot 100's No. 1 spot for a then-record 26 consecutive weeks between them, and for one week the group held the top two positions simultaneously — one of only 11 acts ever to do it. Three Grammys from six nominations followed at the 52nd Grammy Awards, and the Super Bowl XLV halftime show in February 2011 was the victory lap. With roughly 80 million records sold, they rank among the best-selling acts of all time — but ask anyone who came of age in the 2000s where they heard the Black Eyed Peas, and the answer is simpler: everywhere a DJ had authority.
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