Britney Spears says she’s in the studio with Peas’ will.i.am right now
February 8, 2011 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas isn’t taking any time off after his Super Bowl appearance this past weekend. In fact he’s in making new music already, and with Britney Spears no less, according to Spears herself. As the pop singer revealed moments ago via Twitter, she’s “in the studio” with will.i.am for a collaboration which will presumably appear on her forthcoming album Femme Fatale. The record is due out in a mere five weeks, but that mean the recording has necessarily been finished, even with lead single “Hold It Against Me” already a radio hit and its video about to be released in the coming days. For his part, will.i.am hasn’t tweeted about anything since Sunday.
The Black Eyed Peas were the halftime featured act during Sunday’s Super Bowl, performing a montage of their biggest hits along with surprise guest appearances by Usher and Slash. Britney Spears is gearing up to release what will be, if successful, her comeback album after having gone several years without having released one.
Black Eyed Peas talk Super Bowl, jetpack, wardrobe malfunctions with Beatweek
February 5, 2011 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
Will the Black Eyed Peas have any wardrobe malfunctions during tonight’s Super Bowl halftime show? Are they really planning to break out a jetpack? No and maybe, respectively, according to Peas co-founder Apl.de.ap, who spoke with Beatweek about his band’s plans for their world spotlight performance at the nation’s biggest annual sporting event. On the subject of Super Bowl wardrobe malfunctions, which famously got Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake (and CBS) in hot water a few years back, Apl says “We learned not to do that from past performances that we’ve witnessed.” As far as what the Black Eyed Peas actually have planned for their performance, which is likely to include hits from their new album The Beginning and their previous hit record The E.N.D., he quipped that if “my jetpack doesn’t run out of gas, I think we’re alright.” When asked to confirm whether there will really be a jetpack involved, Apl simply laughed and quipped “We’ve got something really special.” Viewers can find out for themselves when Apl.de.ap and his Black Eyed Peas bandmates Will.i.am, Fergie, and Taboo perform during halftime of the Super Bowl on FOX, as the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers go at it.
Apl.de.ap of the Black Eyed Peas spoke at length with Beatweek on a variety of topics in our recent interview.
app review: Riddim Ribbon
March 2, 2010 by Daynah · Leave a Comment
So let’s get this party started! You’re the DJ and the controls for the music mix are right in your hands! Tilt your device left, right, and up to the tunes of Black Eyed Peas, Tiësto, Benny Benassi, (and many more artists to be added soon) as you race down a curvy ribbon, gathering pebbles and hoops for points. When you reach a fork in your track, make a decision to go left or right for a different mix of the song. Jump over ramps to the effects level and give your song a more unique sound. Glide along the track, but be sure to stay away from obstacles that can slow you down!
Don’t be too intimidated playing this game the first few times. The game is easy to learn, but difficult to master at first. Once you get the hang of when to tilt the device during the curvy turns and jumps, it’s a lot of fun. Plus, the narrator is quite encouraging!
Each game is about 4-5 minutes, depending on what song you pick. The game comes with 3 great Black Eyed Peas tracks, including mixes of Boom Boom Pow, I Gotta Feeling, and Meet Me Halfway. For a limited time only, you can also get the mashup of “Imma Be/Rock That Body” for free with purchase. For each song, there are 2-3 mixes that can be played in your race to the finish line. At the end of the game, you can view your total points, your achievements, your top scores and dates of when you played, and how you compare to the global leaderboard. You can also share your score via email with your friends.
In-app purchases for 99 cents include various mixes of:
• Tiësto’s Louder Than Boom and Escape Me
• Benny Benassi’s Satisfaction
The game comes in three levels of difficulty – Easy, Medium, and Hard. You must mix up the previous level with an accuracy of 75% or better to unlock the next level. Harder levels include more twists, turns, jumps, and obstacles, both on and off the track.
One option I’d like added to the game is the ability to view the world-wide leaderboard at any time. Currently, you can only view it after you play the game. I personally like to see the scores I need to beat before playing the game. It’s just makes me more competitive.
Overall, the game is a lot of fun, especially if you love The Black Eyed Peas and racing games. The graphics and animation are great and makes you feel as if you are mixing the song. One note, your right hand may sometimes cover the speakers on your iPhone when playing. That’s not good since this game is music-based. I suggest picking up a game wheel accessory or a gamer’s case to enhance your gaming experience with Riddim Ribbon. Have fun, and happy dj-ing!
Learn more about the Riddim Ribbon app for iPhone and iPod touch in the App Store
Beatweek Magazine issue #64: Lifehouse, Elliott Yamin, Daniel Merriweather, Riddim Ribbon, Elán, Laptop stands, iPod nano cases and more
March 2, 2010 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
On the tech side we get hands-on with some new iPod nano cases, a bunch of laptop stands, and five new iPhone apps including the highly anticipated Riddim Ribbon app based on the music of The Black Eyed Peas (and just for fun we’ve also included our interview with The Black Eyed Peas).
Thank you to those of you who’ve been with us going back to 2004. In between issues, keep an eye on beatweek.com for new interviews and reviews published daily. And yes, the rumors are true – Jason Derulo will be on our next cover.
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Congrats to Lady GaGa, Colbie Caillat, Black Eyed Peas on Grammy wins
January 31, 2010 by Bill Palmer · 2 Comments
When her label asked me to take a look at Lady GaGa’s yet-to-be-released debut album in 2008, it took me way longer to get around to listening than it should have. But I don’t think I got more than about ten minutes into the album before I realized two things: 1) for the first time in my life someone had made an album of dance music that I actually really liked, and 2) she was clearly going to take over the world. When I interviewed GaGa over the phone she was still opening for New Kids On The Block (believe it or not), and in what now seems like an almost impossibly absurd scenario, I initially had to postpone on her because I had woken up that morning with no voice whatsoever (she was gracious enough to reschedule with me). In fact everything I learned about her during that interview could have been described in terms of graciousness, from her kind words for her tour mates to her kind words for my interviewing skills – and she’s come off as every bit as gracious in every interview I’ve seen her give since. I still don’t know how we managed to pull off being the first magazine to ever put Lady GaGa on the cover, but for a fun look back, here’s the original cover story interview in its entirety.
A few years ago I went to see the Goo Goo Dolls and Lifehouse in concert, and the opening act was a pop singer named Colbie Caillat who, despite fighting through some obvious stage fright, was clearly going places. When we decided to put her on the cover of our 6th issue after arranging an email-based interview with her (those were the days), she was actually the first person to appear on our cover who hadn’t yet sold a million albums. A year and a half later we had the good fortune to put Colbie on our cover again, this time the cover of our 46th issue) on the day her sophomore album debuted at #1 on the charts), this time an in depth phone interview. What struck me was that unlike nearly every other pop star of her stature, instead of using a publicist to patch the phone call, she simply pulled out her phone and called me when the time came for the interview, with no pretense. Same story a few months later, when we did a followup interview about her Christmas album.
While I never got the chance to get to the Black Eyed Peas early in their career, what blew my mind were the circumstances in which they did make themselves available to us. On the day that Taboo spoke with me on the phone, I had already watched him and his fellow Peas perform on two different network television morning shows so far that day. Obviously they didn’t need the extra exposure, but they were willing to carve out time for us anyway, on what was probably already one of the crazier days they’ve ever had. Taboo has a solo album coming out eventually (just a Fergie’s came out between the last two Peas records), our interview was all about the Peas.
Those personal stories may not be of interest to anyone but me, but there they are. I’ve also had the fortune to interview six more of tonight’s Grammy nominees including Katy Perry, LMFAO, Steve Vai, The Crystal Method, and Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic, but those stories will have to wait for another time, as I’m guessing most of you are as tired at this point in the evening as I am.
Oh, and I only named five nominees above. The sixth? Rosanne Cash, who will be on the cover of iProng Magazine’s 60th issue, which will be published this Tuesday.
That’s all for me, for now. I hope you all enjoyed watching the Grammys tonight. And to the three of you who watched the Pro Bowl tonight instead, I hope you enjoyed it as well.
Black Eyed Peas interview
“We are everywhere,” jokes Taboo in reference to the fact that he’s on the phone with me just minutes after his Black Eyed Peas have finished performing on back-to-back television shows on the same morning. But the hip hop quartet does in fact seem to be everywhere these days, having recently pulled off the rare feat of scoring the #1 album and #1 single on both the iTunes and Billboard charts.
When you’ve having one of these crazy days like the one you’ve having, with performances and interviews all over town, do you enjoy those days and feed off of it or does it wear you down?
As soon as we hit the stage and we see all the peabodies coming out and supporting the Peas, it brings us to life whether we got three hours of sleep or whether we’ve had eight hours of sleep, the fact is that we are performers and we love to be amongst the peers and the people who support the Peas. So we’re excited. We’re happy to be back together as a foursome. We all did individual projects, but now to be doing the Black Eyed Peas experience for the next three years or whatever it is, it’s going to be amazing.
You went four years in between album releases this time, as opposed to sometimes only a year apart in the past. How is it different when you come back together and it’s been that long since you’ve worked on an album together?
Within the time period that Fergie did The Duchess, and will.i.am did Yes We Can and Songs About Girls, and I did Street Fighter, and Apl did Subject: I Love You, we’ve always been involved in each project. We were on Fergie’s record on the song called Hands Up, and then we were involved with the Yes We Can campaign because we were doing the Democratic National Convention, so we’ve always been in each other’s lives, and it was a natural progression for us to be back into the studio because it was like we never left.
On the day that The E.N.D. debuted at number one in iTunes, you also had the number one and number two singles in iTunes. We all knew the album would do well, but did you imagine you’d have that kind of chart dominance right out of the gate?
We were just excited to be back in the public eye as a foursome, because we all want to share the Black Eyed Pea experience around the world, but to have such a great appreciation here in the States, which we’ve never really had that kind of reception, we’ve always went overseas and built a foundation on creating an international movement.
And now to have Boom Boom Pow come out straight out of the gate, it dominated everything, and we didn’t expect it to be so humungous. And now we have I Gotta Feeling. So it’s good to be home and have that love and appreciation from our own people here in the States.
We know this isn’t your last album. Is there any symbolism in putting the phrase “The End” in the same of your album?
“The E.N.D.” is the end of an era as far as conventional ways of selling music. Before, here in the States we used to have Sam Goody and Virgin Megastore and Tower Records. We don’t have that no more. So the days of going to get a tangible CD and having that in your hand, now you go to Best Buy and Target to get those type of CDs. And now everything is online. You have iTunes and all these different programs on the internet that will take you into a different way of looking at promoting your record, and how to get your record out there. It’s not just about having a CD no more, it’s also about creating components on the internet or on our site dipdive.com so that we’re not just giving people the CD, we’re actually creating opportunities for people to remix songs and to upload different ideas and content.
It’s also the end of the rumors and misconceptions that the Black Eyed Peas were breaking up, or that we’d broken up, because we’d done solo individual projects. It’s also the end of, possibly, this is the last physical CD for any group, let alone a Black Eyed Peas CD. Because four years from now, we don’t know what it could be.
So you think it’s realistic that your next release in 2013 could be just iTunes and MP3? Do you think all of your fans will be willing to go digital by then?
It’s one thing to just have a CD and need to live with that CD, but what if you were able to take those fifteen songs, and then you got ten songs the next month that you couldn’t have on the CD? And then we just keep on giving you new material and keeping it fresh and reinventing the song. Like with Boom Boom Pow, the Boom Boom Pow Invasion had about five different remixes off the same song.
It’s not too often you see a band like yours that has all four members taking turns on lead vocals. When you’re in the studio, is that a democratic process where you say “you take this part, I’ll take that part”?
It all depends. For example there’s a song called Rockin To The Beat on our new album, and it’s only “Rockin to the beat,” that’s all it says at the beginning, and then there’s only my verse. So I wrote that verse, and Will was “we gotta keep this like this, no more verses, just you rock this song and we’ll just have this hook at the beginning and let the music play.”
And then you have other songs like Out Of My Head where Fergie’s talking about being tipsy and all that stuff, and she brought that to the table, like “I want to play this character.” Or else Will will come up with Now Generation, and he’ll lay down the hook, and Fergie will come in and write something. It’s a collaborative effort. We all get a piece of different songs, and some songs are directed toward already having a formula, and some songs everybody brings their own idea and we compromise.
You guys are going to be touring with U2 for some dates in the fall. Are you looking forward to that?
I’m so excited, man. It’s an opportunity for us to be on tour with one of the greatest bands to ever step on stage in the history of music, U2, and what Bono has done as a humanitarian, he’s an inspiration to us and the group is a great inspiration. We’re signed to the same record label, so we’ve been fans of U2 and friends with U2, so we’re excited.
Any chance of any on-stage collaborations with them?
Right now we don’t really have anything planned, but who knows? Maybe throughout the tour we’ll come up with something.
Learn more at BlackEyedPeas.com
iProng Magazine #42: Black Eyed Peas interview, the iProng 50 and more
June 30, 2009 by Beatweek · 26 Comments
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iProng Magazine 42: Black Eyed Peas, iPhone 3.0 and 3GS, iProng 50 and more
June 30, 2009 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
iProng Magazine has released its 42nd issue featuring a cover story interview with the Black Eyed Peas along with the iProng 50 Awards, hands-on with iPhone 3.0, and reviews of TweetDeck and ooTunes. Also interviewed: Butterfly Boucher, Davy Knowles, Endless Hallway, Gretel, Kingsfoil and more.
