60 Songs That Explain the '90s - Black Eyed Peas — “I Gotta Feeling”

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

Are bad lyrics good lyrics? That’s the question Rob posits as he tackles the Black Eyed Peas, who may have mastered the art of good-bad songwriting. He looks back on how the Peas jumped from hip-hop to pop after they added Fergie to their crew, until they ultimately hit dance music in 2009—but they maintained their goofy sensibility the whole way. Later, Rob’s joined by columnist Leslie Gray Streeter to discuss the merits of “My Humps” and why “I Gotta Feeling” has come to represent the Obamacore era. (00:00) Intro: Lyrics so bad that ... maybe they're good? (21:12) This week’s song: “I Gotta Feeling” by Black Eyed Peas (24:57) BEP’s early hip-hop days (39:05) Shifting to pop and recruiting Fergie (51:54) The wonderfully dumb ‘The E.N.D.’ and “I Gotta Feeling” (01:00:24) Interview with Leslie Gray Streeter (01:32:58) Outro Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Leslie Gray Streeter Producers: Julianna Ress, Chris Sutton, Justin Sayles, and Olivia Crerie CONNECT Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/60songsthatexplainthe90s TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@60songsthatexplainthe90s Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends, a quick note to say that 60 songs is now available on YouTube. We made it. Success. That was easy. You can now watch full episodes of this show on YouTube, and you can also check out our new social media accounts on Instagram and TikTok, all using the name 60 songs that explain the 90s. We have heard your cries of despair and confusion,

and we have therefore embraced various popular online platforms. So watch us on YouTube. Check us out on TikTok and Instagram. I'm on Blue Sky and Twitter still under the name Harvilla, H-A-R-V-I-L-A. But maybe stay out of it. I don't know. We'll put all the links for these in the episode description as well. Thanks for listening and or watching.

And we'll see you on the internet. From the studio that brought you Wanda Vision. I was an Avenger, but I'm not a hero anymore. On October 14th, the Vision returns for the final. chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy. That family wasn't real. You sure about that? I had a father called Vision.

How is this possible? Am I losing? Don't miss the two-episode premiere of Marvel Television's Vision Quest. Nothing bonds a family together quite like Mortal Jeopardy. Streaming October 14th, only on Disney Plus. You get these random, perfect, absurdly idyllic moments when it all just clicks into place. You know, the perfect. at the perfect time, a sonic thunderbolt of total serenity. And it's even better when it's a totally

mundane situation, right? When the right song turns a laughably ordinary activity into something extraordinary and unforgettable. So I'm driving my kids home, my two teenage sons and my five-year-old daughter, early evening. We're tuning along in the minivan. We're passing a modest Ohio in, but lovely and peaceful-looking body of water, were bathed in the celestial light of a marvelous technicolor sunset. I got the stereo on, and I am regaling my children with various beloved pop songs of my youth and young adulthood. But then one of my sons, he asks for a song,

and I put it on and boom, the Manny Van Gogh's silent. The song commands our full attention. I get these instant goosebumps. I am overwhelmed by a sense of absolute contentment. The sunset glows with greater intensity and spiritual import. I can feel this song and this moment in printing in my memory and in my kids' memories. It's awesome. And as we silently enjoy this perfect song and this perfect moment together,

what I'm mostly thinking is, are these lyrics dumb? It's nine o'clock on a Saturday. Regular crowd shuffles in There's an old man sitting next to me Making love to his tonic and gin My son requests Piano Man A beloved 1973 hit from one William Joel Why does Billy Joel look so pale and frigid

And perhaps even deceased On the cover of his 1973 album Piano Man? Why does he look like a marble statue of a member of my chemical romance. But more importantly, there's an old man sitting next to me making love to his tonic and gin. Is that dumb? Are these bad lyrics?

How does one make love to an alcoholic beverage? Don't answer that. And are you annoyed when Billy Joel sings Tonic and Gin just so it rhymes with the regular crowd shuffles in? You know who got annoyed about that? You know who, quite frankly, got a little bit bitchy about the tonic engine. Bernie Taupin. Long time superstar lyricist for one. Elton John. Bernie Taupin did an interview with Vulture in

23 and he talked about how he hates it. When people in pop songs say, I'll die if you don't love me because of course you won't literally die. That's ridiculous. That's not true. Bernie hates that. When you say, I'll die if you don't love me. Bernie doesn't believe you. And then the Vulture interviewer asks Bernie, are there other things in pop songs that drive you crazy? And Bernie Taupin says, quote, there was a Kenny Rogers song, The Gambler. The first line says something about a train bound for nowhere. What do you mean? That train is going somewhere, man.

I know that's supposed to be a metaphor, but it's still dumb. Also, there are rhymes where you go, well, that was done purely to find a word to rhyme with that earlier line. That's like Billy Joel writing Making Love to His Tonic and Gin instead of gin in Piano Man. One of the worst ever. Because who says Tonic and Gin? I'd kill myself rather than do that. End quote. Yo, that's pretty rude, Bernie. Hey, let's play some Elton John, shall we?

If I was a sculptor But then again, no. Here we have your song, released in 1970, and written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin. If I was a sculptor, but then again, no. Is that dumb? Are these bad lyrics? Does Elton John go in the middle of that line because he knows it's dumb? Have you ever heard the Elton John song, I Am Your Robot, also co-written with Bernie Taupon?

released in 1982. Did Elton John invent cyberpunk? Bit of a deep cut from Elton there. Do you think his serial number is 4-4-3-5-7 just so he can rhyme something with seven later? Let's

not find out. Are those lyrics dumb? Are most song lyrics dumb? I don't take much offense to Billy Joel's Tonic and Jin actually. I have more pressing concerns. For example, What exactly is a real estate novelist?

Now Paul is a real estate novelist who never had time for a wife. Seriously, does that mean he's a real estate guy trying to be a novelist, or does that mean he writes novels about real estate? Is the phrase real estate novelist dumb? Does that phrase take you out of the song? Anyway, what a startling beautiful moment I had with my kids in The Sunset and Piano Man. I was 100% spiritually locked in with my family, and I was also trying to decide if those lyrics are dumb.

I can multitask. Are song lyrics better when they're dumb? Do we really want song lyrics to make logical sense? Song lyrics are not supposed to be assessed in terms of logic or believability or coolness. If I say these song lyrics are dumb, That's just another way of saying these song lyrics are memorable. And that's just another way of saying these song lyrics are good. Any inherent cringiness is a feature, not a bug.

Like, are we as a society still talking about the John Cougar-Mellon-Camp song Jack and Diane nearly 45 years later? If John Cougar-Mellon Camp doesn't suck on a chili dog outside the Tasty Freeze? That's so gross, dude. There had to be a better way to put it. Just eat the chili dog like a normal person, John, but was there a better way to put it? Do you really want a pop song or a normal guy eats a chili dog in a conventional manner? What percentage of the modern day discourse about Jack and Diane is chili dog sucking bass? Now that's gross. There had to be a better way for me to put that.

Remember a few years back when that guy went viral for singing Jack and Diane, but he changed pretty much all the lyrics to sucking on a chili dog? Here we have Tom McGovern, a comedian, musician dude. I dig how serious and soulful and pensive this dude looks as he sings that line over and over again in what appears to be his closet. Are most song lyrics dumb? Are song lyrics better when they're dumb? Do you really want song lyrics that are logical and reasonable and non-cringy and clever? There's a line from the movie Fight Club that I think about a lot.

Hold on. Hold on. Not that line or that line or that line either. I don't think about Fight Club in a weird, creepy, predatory red flag men's rights sort of way. No, I think about the part of Fight Club when Edward Norton first meets Brad Pitt on a plane and they discuss the relative merits of being clever. Tell you are by far the most interesting single-serving friend I've ever met. To have this thing, everything on a plane is single-serving even the...

Well, I get it. It's very clever. How's that working out for you? What? Being clever. Brad Pitt looking ludicrously handsome while wearing sunglasses on a dimly lit airplane and saying, how's that working out for you being clever with a deadpan contemptuous facial expression? That always stops me from being clever for a couple hours at least. You think you want clever pop song lyrics, but usually you don't. You think you want not dumb sounding pop song lyrics, but you don't.

The dumber the better, in my opinion. The dumber, the more profound. It's a simple equation, really, when it comes to pop songwriting. Dumb equals good. Dumb equal sign good. Therefore, worst equals best. Worst lyrics equal sign best lyrics. Yes, that means you, 50 cent.

This girl, we make mistakes. To make it up, I do whatever it take. I love you like a fat kid, love. Here we have a song called 21 Questions, released in 2003 by the famous and handsome and not at all vindictive superstar rapper, 50 Cent. I love you like a fat kid love cake. I used to hate that line. I used to say all the time that I hated that line.

I used to think that hating something and repeatedly saying you hated something were the same thing. In another lifetime, during my 20s and 30s, in a completely different and now virtually unrecognizable era of human history, the 2000s, back then I would have told you that I love you like a fat kid love cake was dumb. I would have told you that was a bad line. 50 cent, please do not get mad at me. Worst line in a rap song ever.

And you have to wonder if it ever occurred to me that maybe I kept complaining that I love you like a fat kid love cake was bad because it's actually good. Worst equal sign best. On December 29th, 2009, I announced, in my capacity as music editor of the Village Voice, a previously reputable New York City newspaper, I published a March Madness-style brackets

of the worst lyrics of the decade, 2000 to 2009. Worst pop music lyrics of the decade, according to me. I'm pretty sure I know one of the two songs I had playing for the championship, and I'm 100% certain I don't want to talk about it. Let me stop you right there, Liz Fair. Excuse me, for her sake and for my sake, and most importantly, for your sake, let's not.

Seriously, here we have a Liz Fair song from 2003 called HWC. I'd hate to tell you what that stands for, and so I won't. At the time, back in the 2000s, I would have taken. told you repeatedly, loudly, professionally, I would have told you that the lyrics to HWC were bad. I found this particular Liz Ferris song to be tasteless and prurient and grody and also dumb. And so I dropped HWC into a March Madness bracket of the worst song lyrics of the decade, along with other songs. Here's my problem, one of them.

This worst lyrics bracket I whipped up was technically a graphic. which means on the internet it was an image file, which means that now it's a broken image file. So I reached out to a very nice woman who works at the Village Voice, and I asked her if she could please check the archives and maybe send me a scan or something. And she responded, politely, that she could offer me a high-res PDF of my article for $250. So let's imagine what else I might have put on a worst song lyrics of the 2000s bracket in 2009. I got some theories. One theory is that I got all bitchy about grammar.

Perhaps I pedantically observed that it is grammatically incorrect when Alicia Keys sings Concrete Jungle Where Dreams Are Made of in the chorus to Jayze's 2009 number one hit empire state of mind. But doesn't that lyrical clunkiness only underscore the elegance and triumph of empire state of mind? In the grand tradition of Paul McCartney singing this ever-changing world in which we live in, or Lady Gaga singing, you and me, could write a bad romance. Don't you hate it when people get all grammar cop about pop songs? Speaking of cops, Hey, it's Nashville rock band Hot Action Cop with their breakout 2003 single Fever for the Flava, which we discussed quite recently in a previous episode, in what in retrospect was perhaps excessive detail.

I took a screenshot of the fever for the Flava video. I went, I want to babblah blabba babu-da-bab-who-hey. I reveled unnecessarily in the gleeful, wanton, heroically, psychedelic boorishness of hot action cop. That song is dumb. I'm not aware of too many things, but I know what I know if you know what I mean. Ladies and gentlemen,

Nickelback. That's a nickelback song from 2008 called Something in Your Mouth. Also previously discussed on this program, it's the way all the instruments drop out briefly to heighten the anticipation, to accentuate the butt rock melodrama, to bolster the seismic impact of the phrase

with something in your mouth. Nickelback, though. Come on. Too easy. I dig nickel back, actually, and those dudes are reliable, critical punching bags to the point of cliche. Let's maybe try sassing somebody

who rock critics actually historically enjoy. Ladies and gentlemen, Lucinda Williams, Here we have beloved Godtier singer-songwriter and American treasure Lucinda Williams with a 2008 song called Honeybee that is perhaps too sticky for my taste.

She sings with absolute ferocious conviction Lucinda does always up to and including the word tummy. Yeah, I remember at that time either hearing or even just reading the lyrics to Honeybee somewhere and I went, oh, and I went, oh, and And then I gave it a 14 seed or whatever in my worst lyrics bracket. I'm noticing a theme here.

I detect, quite frankly, a personal bias, a prudishness in my taste in song lyrics, a prudishness that is, quite frankly, at odds with every other aspect of my personality. Listen, I'm not saying these are all good lyrics necessarily. I'm not trying to convince you that hot action cop are beautiful. Pulitzer Prize material. I am not recanting. I am not renouncing my worst lyrics of the 2000s bracket. But are these really bad lyrics? If these song lyrics are bad enough that I remembered them and constantly complained about them and deployed them in various pieces of internet content, doesn't that kind of sort of make these lyrics good? Is cleverness overrated? Is dumbness underrated? In pop music, does

bad equal good bad lyrics equal sign good lyrics question mark are the worst lyrics the best lyrics and here's the most vexing question of them all what you're going to do with all that junk all that junk inside that trunk yeah i ain't buying no pdf for 250 bucks but i ain't buying no but I know in my heart who won my worst song lyrics of the decade bracket, I am telling you for a fact that in 2009, I thought the lyrics to my Humps by the Black-Eyed Peas were mega-dum. World historically dumb. This song offended my delicate sensibilities.

It unnerved me the way the baseline to my humps goes, bum-bomb, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. my humps made me question my sanity. And speaking of questions, what you're going to do with all that ass, all that ass inside them jeans? What you're going to do with all that ass inside them? What you've just said,

Will I Am and Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas, is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response, Were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought? Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul. Are these the best pop music lyrics ever? If good equal sign bad and worst equal sign best is my humps the sound of the black-eyed peas

winning a Pulitzer Prize while curing cancer and discovering cold fusion, if previously the most profound question in pop music history had been, how many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man? Is it possible that this whole time the correct answer was, I'm a get, get get you drunk, get you love drunk off my hump? This song is dumb as hell, man. Yauza, this song freaks me. out. The black eyed peas freak me out. There's like 12 black eyed pea songs that I will never

forget for as long as I live, even if they make me feel stupider every time I hear them. These songs are the worst. These songs are the best, question mark? I don't know, man. I don't know much. And in this ever-changing world in which we live in, all I've got, really, are feelings. My name That tonight's gonna be a good night That tonight's gonna be a good, good night My name is Rob Harvilla This is the 52nd episode of 60 songs

That explained the 90s, Cole in the 2000s And this week we are discussing I Got a Feeling By the Black-Eid Peas From their 2009 album, The End. That's the END, which stands for The Energy Never Dies. Sure.

What's you going to do with all that ass? Perhaps get yourself some me undies. Add break. The 2026 Chevrolet Tracks is the stylish SUV for those on the move. And with the standard Chevy safety assist package, you have the backup to handle every turn with confidence. The 2026 tracks. Start your build at Chevrolet.ca.

And here, the Mona Lisa gaze into Mona's eyes in perfect health with no undiagnosed problems and her optic nerve in excellent condition. Anyone here got eyes like Mona? Mine are brownish. Not enough people know about their eye health. That's why OCT scans are included in every standard eye exam at Specsavers locations. Should have gone to Specsavers.

Book an Eye exam today. Eye exams provided by independent optometrists. Contact your local Specsavers for details. Me Undies probably doesn't do podcast ads anymore. That's an outdated reference. I apologize. the year 1990, I turned 12 years old and I thought this was the best rap song of all time. You can't touch this. You can't touch this. You touch this. Yeah, as a preteen, I was most assuredly not a super dope homeboy from the Oak Town, but I nonetheless thought you can't touch this by MC Hammer was the greatest rap song and or pop song of all time. And now, of course, I know that's not true.

true, but a smaller and probably more important part of me still feels that to be true. And that's the whole ballgame with pop music. Is it not? Feelings don't care about your facts. It is a grim but necessary right of passage from naive youth to hardened adulthood when you realize that not everyone loves MC Hammer. Not everyone loves the way you can't touch this employs a brazen, obvious, not especially transformative sample of Super Freak by Rick James. Not everyone loves that MC Hammer is a

crazy huge pop star now who has further collapsed the cultural and commercial distinction between rap and pop. Not everyone loves the way MC Hammer throws around the word proper. Pass me the rock and I'll score

with the goal and proper. What you say hammer, proper? Rap is not pop if you call it that and stop. Here we have beloved Godtier rap group and Queens icons, a tribe called Quest, explicitly sassing MC Hammer on their 1991 song, Check the Rime. Q-Tip is rapping there, Q-Tip delivers the line, but in the Check the Rime video, it's the way Fife Dog contemptuously wipes his nose while Q-Tip says rap is not pop, if you call it that, then stop.

That's the real insult conveyed there. to my beloved MC Hammer. Don't worry, though. MC Hammer will be fine. MC Hammer will be fine eventually. That's Hammer's somewhat less successful and awfully disconcerting 1994 single, Pumps in a Bump,

which always sounds way more like Tupac than I had anticipated. Pumps in a bump walked so my humps could run. Pumps in a bump hump humped, so my humps could hump, Harder. All right. So, best equals worst. Dumb equals genius, but rap does not equal pop. Hmm. Yes. Maybe. Here now is a paragraph from the 2010 Rolling Stone cover story on the Black Eyed Peas. A cover story notably hyper-focused on Black-Eyed Peas leader and visionary and chief songwriter, Will I Am. Quotes,

Until he was 14, smart, music-obsessed, William James, Adams Jr. wore a mom-enforced dress code of suits and an afro. When this was repealed in ninth grade, he chose the flat-topped style he wears today, the Gumby, which perfectly complimented the harem pants ensemble he wore to his first live concert, a 1989 USC performance by a man he still calls an inspiration. People are going to shit on me for saying this, but it's the fucking truth, says Will I am. MC Hammer opened the door for all of us. Without Hammer, there wouldn't be puffy.

There wouldn't be me. End quote. Funny you should mention that. Will. Here we have a song called Puddles of H-2O. Released is a trial balloon single in 1994 by a young Los Angeles rap group called At Band Clan. On the hook there, we have a very young Will I Am wearing cool sunglasses and a cool hat in the video and then going by the name Will 1X.

That's Atban clan, clan with a K and two ends. Atban is an acronym for a tribe beyond a nation. I dig the medium, funky, upright baseline on puddles of H2O, the quite explicit echoes of a tribe called Quest, and also the great semi-avanguard L.A. rap group, the Far Side. But once the fellas and At-Ban clan start rap, It gets a little dicey. It gets a little sticky. So, hey, forget about it. Don't look it up. If you look it up, you will be sad. William James Adams is born in 1975. He is raised by a single

mother in East Los Angeles. And from the onset, Will is notably musically omnivorous. He gets into breakdancing. He gets into early 90s rave culture. He gets into MC Hammer. In the eighth grade, Will joins a breakdancing crew with his Filipino-American friend Alan Paneda Lindo, better known as Apple D-App, AP.L.de-E.com. Copy editors hate to see these guys coming. Will and Apple D-Ap form the At-Ban clan with their friends, Mooky-Mook and DJ Motivate. While still in high school, At-Ban signed to Ruthless Records, the famed L-A-Rap label, notably co-founded by EZE of NWA fame slash infamy. But At Band Clan don't got so much of a

brash confrontational gangster rap, fuck the police type vibe. And this single Puddles of H2O kind of tanks and At Band Clan's purported debut album called Grassroots because of course it is, the record gets shelved and EGEE

passes away in 1995 and why don't we just try this again? All right. Much better. Here we have a song called Fallen Up. Track one on Behind the Front, the jazzy and sinuous and only slightly defensive debut album by the Black Eyed Peas.

released in 1998 on Big Shot major label Interscope Records. At the onset, the Black Eyed Peas are a trio consisting of Will I Am, Apple D.Ap, and their Mexican-American friend Jaime Louise Gomez, better known as taboo, spelled normally. Thank you for that, taboo. I don't know why the fallen up video looks like one of those old-timey sepia tone photographs. You can take it amusement parks where your family all dress up like gunfighters hanging out in a saloon. But there we had Will announcing, we don't use dollars to represent.

We just use our inner sense and talent. immediately after clarifying that his group does not wear Tommy Hillfigure or baseball caps. What the early black-eyed peas aren't matters nearly as much to them as what the early black-eyed peas are. Here is Apple D. App on a stuttering song called Movement, asserting that he will not be molded by the nefarious major label Pop crossover machine. Now what I'm after is to learn for all things. Build in full swing, no strings You got me thinking about things

That I don't need to think about You want to change my appearance For the master, scot me out, undress me, then rearrange me You why can't go for that? You want to change my appearance For the masters. Scope me out, undress me,

then rearrange me. Nobody at any point is telling the black-eyed peas how to dress. I feel comfortable asserting that. These are delightfully weird-looking people. fashion-wise and just vibe-wise. The bigger these fellas get, the more they look like extra flamboyant anime supervillains. I'm into it.

There's a vibrant eclecticism, a grassroots yet science fiction futuristic eccentricity to the audio-visual vibe of this group from the very beginning, the very modest beginning. If you're building one of those Word Cloud visualizer deals for this first Black-Eyed Peas record, where the bigger the font, the more often that word appears. Here, all you would see is positive, positive, positive, positivity, positive, positive, positive, and also positivity. This album behind the front comes out in 1998 when Puff Daddy and Bad Boy Records

and the whole glitzy, shameless, super obvious pop sample-based shiny suit era is popping off. And this record has very arduous De La Sol type game show skits where the black-eyed peas take a few weak shots at Puff and bad boy. But whatever this group is supposed to be, it ain't all there yet. The devastating, tragic, culture-redefining deaths of the notorious B.I.G. And Tupac loom large as well. Here is Will I Am on a song called Karma addressing the enemy.

You shot Tupac and Bigger. Now I'm coming after you like. You shot Tupac and Biggie. Now I'm coming after you like VWXYZ. Is that dumb? You're going to want to decide right now whether you think that's dumb. You better lock in your personal dumbness calibration. The Black Eyed piece 1.0 returned two years later in 2000 with their sophomore album called Bridging the Gap.

Even these album titles, behind the front and out bridging the gap, we're thinking strategy and public perception and mainstream averse self-definition and high-wire rap ecosystem positioning. Here on album number two, here we have Taboo, rapping on a song called Weekends, another delightful De La Sol Echo from the title on down

that also just so happens to be the first black-eyed piece song that totally succeeds as both a rap song and a pop song. Mr. Will E. Um, Mr. Will E. Um, when on win, Mr. Willey, um. Get our boogie on when the weekend come Check the peop Cause the vibes are strong Selina's Filipinas, they come one by one

All lined up and they're ready for fun Short ones, tall ones, beautiful ones Be boys, be girls ready to what? The shot here in the weekend's video of Will and Apple D. App and Taboo crammed together at a nightclub table And their clunky glasses And handmade's tail, bright red hats

And headbands and whatnot I dig the black eyed peas Quirky Comority tremendously. I dig the way they casually play off each other and genuinely appear to enjoy each other's company. It is abundantly clear already that Will I Am is running the show here as the visionary and primary producer and most prominent rapper. But a balanced, increasingly pop curious underground rap trio needs a guy who can rhyme. Salinas, Filipinas, they come one by one, all lined up and they ready for fun. And Taboo can do that.

that. This song Weekends is also notable for featuring on the hook, the playful LA via Ontario Canada singer Esthero. Yeah, this is by some distance the catchiest early Black-Eyed piece song, but Esthero is only one of several prominent additional voices here on bridging the gap. We are building a coalition. We got DJ Premier. We got the great super bass voiced rapper Charlie Tuna. from fellow rap group Jurassic 5. We got De LaSoul, we got Mo's Def, we got Macy Gray, who's blowing up.

But perhaps most importantly, most poignantly, we got the singer Kim Hill, a longtime friend of the Black Eyed Peas, and if not quite a fourth member, than a frequent featured vocalist. Kim sang on three songs on the first album, and she's involved in the second album as well. It is not yet occurred to this group

that they ought to just hire a full-time female vocalist, but by now that has occurred to pretty much everybody else. And Kim Hill very easily could have been the fourth and final piece. That song is called Hot, and that's not the cleverest hook you're ever going to hear in your life in terms of like wordplay, but there is a synergy, a mind meld, a buoyant, hot but cool, cool but real bond between Kim Hill and these dudes. In 2019, Hill collaborated with a New York Times opinion section on a many documentary, an op-doc, they called it, headlined, I quit the black-eyed peas. Then they became famous. Kim talks about performing the song, Joints and Jam, with the Black-Eyed Peas on Soul Train in 1998,

where of course Kim and the guys had to lip sync, but the guys made a big show of lip-syncing poorly in a bid to convey some measure of integrity. Will looked in camera and just stop singing. And you heard the track going to make it clear. We ain't really singing this. That was his way of making a point. Yeah, the Black Eyed Peas on Soul Train in 98 captures both the wild joy and the obstinacy of this operation. The awkward yearning for mainstream stardom, but only on their terms.

or I guess ideally on their terms. Most of this Kim Hill documentary is just Kim in close-up, addressing the camera with a striking mixture of incredulity and total understanding. The band was very specific

about how we were looked at and received by people and being purist, which is why once it started, the pressure started coming to like soften it up and make it super commercial, was like,

we're not really going to do that, are we? And the guys were like, you don't have to go back to East L.A. If this doesn't work out. We are just about to bid farewell to the Black Eyed P's 1.0 to say goodbye to the Black Eyed Peas in their initial underground rap-oriented trio formation. And the billion dollar question here, because this group is about to make like a billion dollars, is how jarring a transformation is this going to be really? What's coming? Is it a total betrayal of what the black-eyed peas used to stand for? There's a song in this second album, bridging the gap called Bringing It Back.

It's, of course, being hip-hop in its purest, most honest, most innocent, most noble form, unsullied by commerce. And the key line repeated before each chorus is, money is a drug and MC's is on it. rap is not pop. If you call it that, then stop. But these first two black-eyed peas records don't sell well. And while money might be a drug, money is a drug that is both necessary and legal. And so here comes the pressure to soften it up and make it really commercial. And as the singer Kim Hill learns, that inevitably involves getting a little raunchier.

It just started to get clumsy and messy. You want me to grind on will I am in a bathing suit. That was being asked of me, never by the guys. That was happening from an executive level. How far out on this plank do you want me to go? And so Kim Hill bails out. She tells the Black Eyed Peas management she can't do this anymore. She says, quote, I never wanted to be objectified while doing my music.

End quote. She quits. Meanwhile, the three Black Eyed Peas jump to the Interscope Subsidiary. A&M records and their new label president and producer, a guy named Ron Fair. Ron co-produced a thousand miles by Vanessa Carlton. Ron's legit. Ron is a few suggestions for the P's. And also a few hard truths. Talking to MTV News in 2004, Ron says, quote, I asked them, how would you feel about taking a leap and going more into the pop world? They replied, we don't want to lose our credibility or our fan base.

I said, well, if you don't take a shot at it, it's going to get worse because the backpack crowd are the people who will download the records for free, end quote. And then he suggested that the peas try working with somebody like, oh, I don't know, maybe Justin Timberlake. The third Black Eyed Peas album is released in 2003 and is called Elefunk. Elefunk with a pH. Some changes. have been made. This song is called Where's the Love? It features Justin Timberlake, crooning sensitively on the chorus. This song hits number eight on the Billboard Hot 100. It is nominated

for two Grammys, including Record of the Year. And as I speak, it is amassed nearly 1.5 billion plays on Spotify. Also, the Black-Eyed Peas are now officially a quartet. Please welcome Stacey Anne Ferguson, aka Fergie, the fourth member of the Black-Eyed Peas for a while. Fergie's around for the Imperial era of the

Black-Eyed Peas, which starts now. Where's the Love is the first single off this Elefunk album? And on this song, at least, Fergie is mostly used as a soothing, subtle background presence. Meanwhile, Will I Am kicks off his opening verse by

rhyming Mama with Mamas. What's wrong? with the world mama. People live a lot. Things that bring the trauma. USA, the big CIA. The bloods and the Crips and the KKK.

Specifically, Will I Am rhymes mama, Mama's drama and trauma. Also, in 2006, the Black Eyed Peas make the cover of Blender magazine and Will I Am's talking about where is the love? And he says, quote, I never thought that song was going to be played

on the radio. If I did, I probably wouldn't have written that line calling the CIA terrorists, end quote. Success arrived abruptly and hilariously for the black-eyed peas. Talking to the telegraph in 2016, Will I.M. says that where is the love was inspired by, quote, the stress, the anxiety, and the pain of 9-11, end quote. And this song quite earnestly attempts to respond to that stress, anxiety, and pain with, in a word, positive, Positive, positive, positive, positive, positive positivity. Success arrives abruptly and hilariously for these fellas,

but even after they get famous, you can still clearly hear the earnest cornball semi-underground dudes from those first two records. To my mind, the famous version of the black-eyed peas is not so much a betrayal of the non-famous version of the black-eyed peas. It's just that they get way better at doing the thing they've always been trying. to do. It's just that now they're writing successful, huge, catchy, positive pop songs. And yeah, also, now they've got her. And indeed, here we have Fergie, not very subtly channeling Alicia Keys on another huge elephunk single, a song eventually and mercifully known as Let's Get It Started. That's not the original title. The song's original title and hook features a tremendously unfortunate slur. If you know, you know, and if you don't stay out of it. The original title of

Let's Get It Started is one of the biggest, what the fuck are you thinking moments in early 21st century pop? Climsy and messy will always be a crucial component of the black eyed peas experience. The black eyed peas are an underground coded struggling rap group who add a white singer lady and immediately become a superstar blockbuster pop group. That is objectively what happens. But I will say that Fergie is an excellent and organic feeling addition to this group's established quirky, goofy, lovably corny camaraderie. Here's taboo.

Rapping on Let's Get It Started with a little Fergie popping up in the background. It seems like they're really truly enjoying one another's company. She helps. Get started, get stupid. You're wondering about it. People will walk you through a step by step like an infant new kid. Each by inch with a new solution. Transmit hits with...

Step by step like an infant new kid is a very strange and kind of dumb line. But dumb equals good starting now. Fergie is born in Hacienda Heights, California in the L.A. suburbs. She's a child star. She's on that children singing pop songs TV show Kids Incorporated. That's cool. She's the voice of Sally, Charlie Brown's little sister in a bunch of peanuts cartoons. That's really cool.

And she's part of the early 90s R&B girl group Wild Orchid. Starting now, Fergie is a huge pop star and tabloid fixture with much lurid attention focused on her earlier struggles with crystal meth addiction. Talking to Blender magazine, Fergie says she turned her life around because, quote, I had a conversation with God, basically. I don't know how to interpret this, but he said, I've given you this beautiful gift and you're throwing it away, end quote. In that same Blender cover story, Apple D. App also talks about beating an addiction to Crystal Meth

that he developed after the first two Black Eyed Peas albums flopped. And he talks about funding that addiction, partly with $100,000 the group got for doing a Dr. Pepper ad. The Black Eyed Peas experience is a proprietary blend of the sublime, the ridiculous, and the harrowing.

Let's mostly stick with the ridiculous, shall we? Check it. He rock making, street block shaking. Club life's great when it's house quaking.

There are bigger additional hits on this Ella funk record. I've been getting Hey Mama stuck in my head periodically to the point where I'm hesitant to play it for you. But I find myself drawn to this song called The Boogie That Be, in which Fergie

Raps with great enthusiasm and Will backs her up with great enthusiasm. Fergie and Will I Am are going to spend a lot of time now rapping very goofy, quasi-sexy lyrics with or at each other. But Will and Fergie nonetheless have an oddly appealing and weirdly chaste brother-sister vibe, even when they're rapping together about Fergie's humps. In that

Blender article, Will says that he wrote my humps while he was buying a burrito and standing behind a lady with, quote, the biggest butt I've ever seen in my life, end quote. I'm so happy he was buying a burrito. I cannot

explain how happy it makes me that he was buying a burrito in this anecdote. The newly gargantuan black guide P's return in 2005 with their fourth album called Monkey Business. This song is called Pump It.

It's the radio edit. You'll figure it out. Shout out surf guitar legend Dick Dale. Please note the great big, shameless, obvious, and tremendously effective sample of Dick Dale's iconic 1962 version of the song

Misaloo. Pumpit is the second best pop culture reappropriation of Miserloo after Pulp Fiction. Notice that Will I Am is directly addressing the haters, and not for the first or last time. The Black-Eyed Peas are getting saltier and saucier and huger and catchier and sillier. Pick any Black-Eyed Peas video at random, and it's a buffet of high-budget goofiness and priceless cornball camaraderie.

Here's Will in some sort of flamboyant 70s game show host. get up, doing the splits as he introduces Fergie singing a song called Don't Funk with My Heart. That's all very silly, but I dig the beat there tremendously. The snare drum and tabla crunch of that beat. That's don't funk with my heart. P-H-U-N-K. I was listening to this song with my five-year-old daughter, and she was like, Daddy, they

just said a bad word. And I said, no, baby. They're saying funk, P-H-U-N-K, and my daughter's like, they just said a bad word. And I'm like, yeah, you're right. They did. This monkey business record features both Talib Kuali and Jack Johnson, both James Brown and Sting. Rap is pop if it's the black-eyed peas doing it. You get both My Humps, a monumentally dumb song about a curvy lady buying a burrito.

And you get a song called Bebot, in which Apple D-Ap wraps pretty much. entirely in Tagalog. What Apple Diap is saying there, he first move to L.A. that's a very important it in the L.A. Nactrabo. What Apple Diap is saying there, he first moved to L.A. to make money

to support his family back in the Philippines, basically. That's very important. But the language he's saying it in is also tremendously important. The black-eyed peas made a bright and cheerful and goofy and extra color-saturated, multicultural party-type video for this song. This song, wrapped nearly entirely into Gallag,

appears on an album that sold 9 million copies worldwide. The Black-Eyed Peas have softened up and gone commercial, just as their old friend Kim Hill feared. But you are unlikely to mistake the Black-Eyed Peas for anybody else. They have not lost their fundamental eccentricity. They have not lost their fundamental and highly-presenter. productive dumbness. In 2006, Fergie releases a solo album called The Duchess, featuring a song called Fergalicious, in which Will I Am very enthusiastically misspells the word tasty

repeatedly. That's not how you spell tasty, my dude. There is no E in Tasty, and yet I'd love this song, Fergolicious, a little less if Will had spelled Tasty. Correct. Right. Dumb equal sign good. The dumber, the better at this point, if we're being honest. Even if you're a hater who insists the black-eyed peas are stooping to lowest common denominator pop cheesiness, you'd have to admit they're stooping so low they can see God. The black-eyed peas are playing tenth-dimensional chess at this point.

The black-eyed peas are so 3,08, whereas you're so 2,000 and late. That is a magnificently dumb and perfect line from Fergie on a song called Boom Boom Pow from the band's fifth album released in 2009 and called The END. The Energy Never Dies. How's that working out for you being clever? Will I Am is on that next shit now

and that next shit is dance music. In that 2010 Rolling Stone cover story, Will talks about being on Australia while he was co-starring in the movie X-Men Origins, Colin Wolverine. Not a good movie. Not a bad equals good movie. But yeah, Will went to a hip-hop club in Australia, and he realized hip-hop was out and Electro was in.

Will says, quote, I came back hollering dance music, Jimmy, dance music. Whoever cracks dance music wins, end quote. That's Jimmy Iovine, the superstar record producer. My favorite Will I Am moment on this album, The END, is the way he rhymes blog with job. I'm gonna be rocking like this. What? Y'all and one talk, talk.

What? Why don't you put it on a blog? What? Rocking like this is my job. What? I spent a long weekend recently just walking around going, why don't you put it on a blog? Rocking like this is my job.

Take that, haters. Take that as well. Intrigingly, my least favorite Will I Am moment is all. also on this song, Amma B. When he rhymes Lehman, as in Lehman Brothers, the Too Big to Fail Investment Bank that collapsed and declared bankruptcy

during the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. Will rhymes Lehman with something I wish he hadn't rhymed with Lehman. I'm gonna be brilliant with my millions. Loan out of billion. They get back a trillion.

I'm gonna be a brother, but my name ain't Lehman. I'm gonna be a bank. I be loaning out scene. Oh my God. Listening to this song, I'm a B very recently, when I first realized what he rhymed with Lehman, I went, oh, so loud that I alarmed my children. My kids were like, what's wrong, Dad?

And I was like, music, yes. It is 2009. In America, has elected President Barack Obama to the great delight of many. And America is also weathering an ongoing epic financial collapse to the utterance. devastation of many. And so, this album, the END, mixes cheeseball triumph with cautious resilience and mixes hornball glee with societal trepidation. Talking about this whole album in Rolling Stone in 2010, Fergie says, quote, it's meant

as escapism. We specifically wanted people to forget about their money problems, losing their jobs, their homes, end quote. because you can theoretically forget all that, at least for one night. The woo-hoo makes the whole song, in my humble opinion. The woo-hoo is essential. The woo-hoo sells both the drama and the escape from all the drama. I Got a Feeling is written and produced by the Black Eyed Peas alongside French dance music producers Fred Rister and David Geta.

Look, the Black Eyed Peas did not pioneer the concept of huge pop stars pivoting to mass market EDM, but they're earlier than many of their peers. And Will I am saying whoever cracks dance music wins in the late 2000s, is a reasonably shrewd and prescient take on what pop music will sound like in the early 2010s. The fluidity, the malleability, the rampant changeability of the black-eyed peas has always been both their greatest weakness, according to their haters, and their greatest strength, according to their bank accounts. Genre vibe shifts aside, though, what's always struck me about I Got a Feeling is that it's

not so much performed to you or for you as much as it's performed at you. Mazel Tov, here we have the Black Eyed Peas live in Australia, I believe, or at least they're on Australian television. And this has always been my experience of I Got a Feeling, whether I'm hearing it on the radio or on Saturday Night Live or in a promo for the CBS Fall TV lineup. I Got a Feeling is four winsome, flamboyantly dressed pop. stars just standing on stage and jumping up and down and shouting at you. This song is Home Invasion Energy. You, the listener, are being violently confronted with

tonight's goodness. Talking to Rolling Stone, Will I.M. says, quote, what is the easiest emotion to act? Anger. What is the hardest? Joy. That's because joy is complex. It's somber, sad, happy, heartbroken. hopeful. It's all those emotions in one. What you hear, and I got a feeling, to me, that's joy. You're in pain, but tonight's going to be a good night. You can't feel happy when you've been pissed off the whole week. You have to go straight to joy, end quote. And it has to be a good night. It cannot be a great night. One cannot describe this night with a better, cleverer, more vivid and imaginative word for good.

It has to be good. Not because good is the ceiling, not because good is the best this night can get. It's because good is the best a night can possibly be. Good equal sign the best. This part cracks me up every time.

The drank startles me every time. Fergie puts her whole hump into that. Drank. two-second span from drank to Lahime distills the very essence of the black-eyed peas, who they used to be, who they became, who they were always trying to be. And it won't last. The Fergie era of the black-eyed peas won't last.

The EDM pop boom won't last. The hope and change fueled good vibes of the Obama Corps era won't last. But we'll always have tonight, won't we? It's simple. But it's also not simple. Talking to Rolling Stone, Will I.M. says, quote, lots of people say black-eyed peas shit is simple. And I'll be like, no, fool. It's the most complex shit you could even fathom. That's the reason it works everywhere around the planet. End quote. Okay, fine. It's complicated. But I got a feeling as powered by the simple

principle that all we want, everywhere, all around the world, is a catchy, soothing. empowering soundtrack as we kick back and make love to our tonics and gin. We are so delighted to welcome once again our dear friend Leslie Gray Streeter, author and columnist for the Baltimore Banner. Her books include Black Widow, Family and Other Calamities, and Her Newest Novel, Bignets and Big Feelings, which is out this coming Tuesday, October 13th. Leslie, welcome back. And thank you, as always, for being here. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. We're always excited to have you.

Leslie, is my Humps by the Black Eyed Peas a good song? Define good. Do you enjoy it while it is playing? Are you happy to be confronted by my humps by the Black Eyed Peas? And I will say, confronting is the right word for that. I do feel... Yes. Like, you can't be neutral about a song about a butt.

So let me take you back to Sir Mix-A-Lot. Please. Please do. Okay, so I'm going to compare but songs. Okay, so Sir Mix-A-Lots baby got back in, I believe, 1992, was ostensibly a celebration by a man of the human, of the woman form. And those of us who were curvy were like, oh, my gosh, it's some sort of empowerment. Really, it was like, now I could objectify you openly. like other people object skinny people.

So is it a win? I don't know. But it was very clever. You know, my Anaconda don't want none unless you got bun ton. And I love that the you can do side bin or sit-ups, but please don't lose that, but. Because it's like, I'm not trying to stop you from being healthy, but, but, but, um, my hump is like the etch-a-sketched version of that song. You know, it's, um, yeah, it's body, but in a stupid way, it's not really clever.

Yeah, that's true. It's not really a double and, yeah, it's, it's pretty direct. No, it's just my lovely lady lumps. Yeah. That's not like a metaphor for anything. No. It's kind of just like another thing to call. It's like what your boyfriend might call your butt.

Sure. Or it all could be your boobs. The other lady lumps. I don't know. There's a lot going on in that song. But I will say it was inescapable. There's a lot going on right now with that song, Chews in Texas,

that everyone is fighting about. Right. Have you heard this song? Yeah, exactly. Yes. And there's a people, Rolling Stone was like, there's a reason people are saying they haven't heard it,

because they haven't heard it. Because we are not in a monoculture anymore. We are far from the monoculture, where you are siloed by your algorithm, them and what you listen to. And at this point, I'm 55 years old. So I, the new music that I get is from my kid. And he's not listening to that. So he's like, he's very into Blink 182 right now, which is very funny. But. Oh, wow. That's heartening. Is that, is that good? As a parent, are you pleased by that or are you unnerved by that? It's, it's all going to be like vulgar and

stupid anyway, so it might as well be fun, I guess. And it's like, and I know it. The devil you know. Right. Right. The devil, I know. Okay. The other day in the car, he said, do you know that song that goes, I would do most anything to get you back by my side?

And I go, boys don't cry by the cure. And he goes, you know it? Olivia Rodriguez, doing God's work out there. You know what? And I was like, played on the cure version. And he's like, oh, I like this. I like this.

I'm like, of course you do. Anyway, back to the butt. Sure. My humps was like the black eyepies, that version of black IPs engineered to fit into the 2000s, Girls Gone Wild, Q Hefner, Playboy Girls Next Door, Trucker Hat, Kardashian situation. Everything was like made in a lot.

lab and that song was like, if you get some butts and you get like some guys singing and you have some repetition and then it becomes a hit and it did become a hit. So all that long-wittedness to say is that it is an effective pop song. Is it good objectively? No, it is not. Very good. Just a whirlwind historical tour of American history just now by you. What a beautiful journey we just took with my humps. You told me that generally you find the black-eyed peas to be enjoyable, but I didn't always feel good about it. What do you mean by that? What made you feel not good about enjoying the black-eyed piece? Because there was absolutely nothing organic about the way, like I said, it was their sound, their personnel, everything appeared to be created in

lab. It was like marketing. It was focus grouped. It's like, okay, so we take our consciousness thing we did originally. We get rid of the black lead singer. We get a white girl. We make her crappy and pretty like the girls that are on TV and in music right now. We do a little of the, as you mentioned, a little of where is the love. So it's like, look, we're singing about people. And then it's butts.

And then it's like the song we'll talk later with the word I'm not going to say. but Thank you. I felt like Pump it, I think, is a great song. I think, you know, the Miserilu sample Dickdale.

Yeah, yeah, totally. Oh, God, that's a great song. That's a really, like, that's a running song. That's a driving song. That's a really, like, musically, no, did they create the most significant riff of the song? No, they did not.

Did they figure out how to incorporate it? into it basically goes pomp it pop it. Okay, great. Which reminded me of the 90s and the every pump up the jam, pump it, you know, whatever. It had all that in it. Salt and pepper. Salt and pepper. There's lots of pumping in the 80s and 90s.

That's what we were doing back then. I was listening to a lot of songs about pumping. There is a distinction there, but I take your point. Yeah, it was. There you go. On a secondhand pumping. It's like a drive-by fruiting, Mrs. Doubt, fire hashtag.

You never know what you're going to get with me when I'm on the show, dude. That's why you're back. But yeah, there you go. I feel like they were solid pop hits. They were solid airworms. They were created to be listened to. And they were played in that monoculture all the time everywhere. It was a huge crossover.

And it was in that type of radio in Escape And also MTV was still a thing. So it was right. This is the the TRL era, kind of, maybe late in the TRL era, but still. Did you have any relationship with the backpack rap consciousness era like pre-Fergy black-eyed peas? Did you listen to them? Were you aware of them? I was slightly aware of them, but more so when they came out as the Fergie version, I looked them up

because they're an interesting group of people. They're an interesting, interestingly put together for people. This is not the Parlman, right? This is not. No. And it's like, this is interesting. So, yeah, so I went back and I looked them up. And I was like, oh, this is completely different from, because they reminded me.

And I listened to some of their earlier stuff reminded me of, like, arrested development. And, you know, that kind of thing. And the Fugis even, there was a. very specific. There were so many different influences to it, but it was solidly hip hop in that way, but to be open and it was very, I enjoyed it, but it's a completely different thing.

They made a choice to be a different thing. I agree with you, but then I listened to the song like, Where is the Love, right? Which I think was their big breakout as Fergie. And like when you listen to the early records, it's all like we're positive, positive, positive. Like, let's all get along. Like, where is the love seemed to me like just a successful version of what they'd already been trying to do?

Like, in some ways, it's a total break with their past. But whereas the love is interesting to me as just like a continuation. And like now they're doing the same thing, but they're just successful at it. You know what I mean? I think it's the gateway. I think it was the bridge between that. And because in the video, they're just. like, they look so yearning.

They're like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-ha. They look very sad about the children. Very sad. Everybody is looking into the future, looking to see what is the love. Where is the love? And they're all, like, dressed.

Like, Fergie has a lot of clothes on or at least an appropriate amount of clothes on. Right. It is not sexual or body. It's formal by their standards, yes. Yes, formal. It's the DIA. Black Eye Piece Tuxedo they're doing there.

But it's very, I think to me it seemed like a test case, right? Like, let's put this out that Bridges Who We Were with the New Blonde Edition. And that's, unfortunately, it's a very dream girl's thing. It's like, let's do what we're doing, but let's put the skinny girl up front. That's a great. That's really good. See what we're doing. And then as the dreams, it's one of my favorite movies.

As, you know, they keep going, they adapt to discreet. and all this other kind of stuff, but the formula stays in place. The formula that was successful stays in place. It's a very complicated thing now, but are you pro or anti-Fergy in general? Like what she represents in that changeover is a very fraught thing. But what do you think made her the perfect person

for like the pop superstar era of this band? Well, you know, and I've been thinking a lot about this. Okay, so Stacey Ferguson starts as a member of Kids Incorporated, a 1980s kids variety show thing, also with Martika. Really? The Toy Soldiers? Yeah. Lady? Okay.

Yes. Martica was in it. Okay. Kids Incorporated. She was then. I think Marta Rivera. And then their name was Marta. And then Mario Lopez playing the drums.

Jennifer Luff Hewitt, a woman named Renee, who's last name I had not. remember, but she and Fergie were then in a group called Wild Orchid, which was terrible. Have you ever seen there's a video? Rob, I got to send you this thing. I got to see this video that goes around once a year on social media. It was Stacey and Renan, who were the third young lady was, and they're singing. And they looked like an SNL or Matt TV parody of a group singing Christina Aguilera. It was everything.

It was the 90s line. and the big hair, and they were like, oh, and their mouths were moving wildly and specifically within the lip liner, lip linering, and it was terrible. But I thought, so when I saw her, and I recognized her as Kids Incorporated Stacey and also, like, Fergie, that's interesting,

that's right, Ferguson. But then I realized that she had, I remember that she had a really good voice. And I had watched her sing since she was, a kid. So that voice was in there. But it became more refined and more refined, and she had more control of her voice, which is what happens the older you get.

And so by the time she got in Black IP, she was not as gesticulating wildly, vocally. She had toned it down, which is a strange thing to say about Fergie, but she had, yeah. Dude. She had toned it down and she got better. She has a very powerful voice. She has that very much, that once again, the Christina Aguilier kind of a top 10 soul voice, not like Christina Aguilera's voice because no one is like that. No. All the malisma.

By the time she does solo stuff, the Duchess is a kick-ass album. I love that album. Yeah. And it's weird, but big girls don't cry. was the anthem of a really stupid breakup I had. You know, where I'm driving going, you know, it was just amazing. I'm sorry that happened to you,

but that's a great song for that moment. Yeah, I'm so glad for you was there for you at that time in your life. Okay. And it's not like she went completely on her own, wrote everything, produced everything. She's still someone who's being produced and planned and stuff. But there was still her on her own was less like girl in the group under a male gaze, even though she's still under the male gaze, if that makes sense.

Maybe it doesn't make sense. It does. I know. I know exactly what you're saying. And the songs were better. The songs were better, I think. To me, the songs are better. But, yeah, what she represents as being a blonde, curvy, white girl,

replacing a black woman in a group that is. multicultural and being now the obvious Beyonce-esque, Dina Jones' dreamgirl's focus is gross. But, you know, I'm, I will belie my Gen X tendency to call anything a sellout. Okay. Because that's stupid. One of my favorite episodes of your show is you talking to Ryder Strong about the concept of selling out. It's like, can we get a check? Why is it bad to have a job reality bite to have a check?

Right. And I was like, you are not wrong, sir. You are not wrong. So, yeah, I'm not going to begrudge or her chat. It's interesting. You say the male gaze thing because I'm really interested in the Fergie and Will dynamic. Like my humps ostensibly is a song where Will is hitting on Fergie. But there's a really weird like brother, sister vibe to them.

Like so much of Fergie's role in this group is to be like hit on by, will, but it doesn't, it feels so weird and cuddly and wrong in like a cool way. Am I making any sense to you? Yeah. You know that in Blades of Glory, there's the brother-sister team who are a little too close that their routines are a little too bring girlfriend. And that's kind of what it felt like that, yes, it is gross. and let's be honest, the racial dynamics of having this dark skin black man, you know, for a living now hitting on this white girl.

And the fact that, I mean, I don't know if they get away with that now and still be, not that they were family friendly, but still like, you know, they're still a kids bob version, not of my hums, but of some of this stuff. Okay, good. Yeah. And that's a whole weird. I'd like to come back and do kids bop at some point with you. But I'd like you to do that. That whole phenomenon. The hell was that.

But, yeah, it's, she was. so objectified, but yet there was still a place for her humanity. Like, they still were like, and that's just Stacy. Like, that's just for me. Like, there was a great naturedness to the doggy-dogness of it, which I thought was interesting

because, like I said, there was so much of that happening in that era. And none of it was cute. There's nothing cuddly about Girls Gone Wild. there's nothing really cuddly if you look at it about the girls next door. It's still gross. The Twin Peaks, Hooters, Tilted Kilt era of restaurants.

You know, it was all, that was a musical restaurant that song. And it's weird. Yes. I hard agree on all of that. Yeah, wow. As you mentioned, like these are really weird. weird people, you know, this is a really striking group of people. And like, Will and Fergie are the very obvious focal points.

But I do think that taboo and Apple D.A. are, like, important and necessarily. Like, they'd been there from the beginning. And, like, this needs to be, like, a bigger, unruly gang. Like, what's your sense of the total group dynamic here? Well, you know, they're, this, I'm going to say aesthetics. And this sounds like I'm objectifying people. but they were visually striking.

I covered them 20-something years ago whenever they were touring in South Florida in Fort Lauderdale, and there were so much happening on the stage at once. Like they're moving, and there's, you know, braids flying and Fergie's hair and Will's wearing a hat,

and, you know, it's all, everybody else was doing whatever he does, And because they're so, they are very racially striking, you know, as a separate group, which does remind me of the way that some, say, girl groups, it's like an S Club 7 situation. It's like, make sure there's black girl. And then there's a dark, twice girls, that whole kind of situation. But because there's also, there's a gender difference. And also because those three guys were organic. They were organic to the group.

And so she adds They were, yeah, and so she adds a different dynamic. I think that it only works. Because if it's just Will and Fergie, it's this weird twisted captain and Teneal situation. Did you, have you read about that? That was a terrible marriage. I had a vague sense of that,

but I have not done the Captain and Teneal deep dive and I need to get to that. Do I need to get to that? Do I want to know? No, you just want to. No, you probably don't. I don't want to hurt your feelings. Okay.

I don't want my feelings. I don't want my feelings. Okay. No. Tony Tenil is Godstrong a soldier because, damn, that was not a great situation. But if it's just, yeah, it's, if it's just like weird peaches and herb, it's just the two of them together, it's, they're always just going to be playing off of each other's energy. Right. Right.

But with the four of them, it is a group. It is, there is a dynamic that is different. there's a very bad but funny in a bit way it should not be SNL sketch from that period that's right yeah yes they said they were um taboo was on the cover it was Andy Sandberg on the cover of vaguely Asian magazine I was like it's a different time it wasn't that different at the time but it was that's what I'm talking about right none of this would work now none of this would work now. Right.

Or they would have to be different because let's be honest, the crowd that now wants you to be racially insensitive is not a crowd that's going to buy this. That's very true. The Morgan Wallin fans are not buying this. Oh, no, they are not. Wow. Okay. So this is, this is speaking of it being a different time, Leslie, why did the black eyed

P's name Let's Get It Started? something else at first. What were these people thinking? What were you thinking? I think this is the, and it's weird because well I am does not seem like the kind of person that miscalculates a lot. He doesn't.

That's his whole thing, is calculating exactly how far to go. It's calculating and planning. And I really think that when they were launching big as past, whereas the love, now we're a party band. Now we're seeing all this other stuff that's happening. And so that term, which we will not use, but that Rhindwood started, is something that people would say, because there's a line and it gets stupid, which is, it's like, let's lose all control. Let's get drunk. Let's, you know, get unfetter. Let's get on whatever. And so that has been unfortunately associated with having some sort of mental,

mental setbacks or mental disabilities or developmental issues. And that's a thing that I grew up, and I'm sure you grew up hearing people saying to people. And they didn't really mean that they had mental... It's like it's a way of saying, God, that was stupid for you to say.

I can't believe you're acting so stupid, but using that word. So I remember hearing that song or singing on that, the original, I probably had the CD, and going, said what now and then hearing on the radio it's now right so yeah the fact that once again nothing that you would ever do no you would never do that now i don't think someone that's not true

someone who was trying to get like a indie kind of you know whatever thing going might do it but someone like well i am who was really targeting world domination and trying to be the whitecliff of his generation the quincy jones the baby face the uber producer whatever that guy was not, would not knowingly, well, not knowingly, I don't think he thought it through. No. Use that word. And the fact that it immediately went off, they were like, never mind, new word. Yeah.

Yeah. Remix. Yeah. Remix, yes. Will I am as interesting to me, because I agree, like, he's a world domination guy. I think of him as Bono. Like, he wants to be like the tech mogul. wants to be a thought leader.

He's like a walking TED talk, right? Like, he's like a politician, you know, maybe literally, eventually. Like, what do you make of him as like a public figure? Like I said, have you ever watched him on The Voice UK, which just fired Tom Jones because they suck? I am not. I'm sorry to say. I'm sorry they did that to you, though.

It's terrible. Poor Tom Jones. And who's salty about it on social media, which I love. He's like, not a good time to fire an 85-year-old guy. I'm like, you tell him, Tom Jones. That's right. On that show, Will I Am is like the constant. He's the wise person.

He's the like nice Simon Cowell in terms of he is like the anchor of the thing. And that and he's all like his eyes are all wide. You know, all he does. He looks and he's just listening and he's just, you know, doing this whole little. thing and that reminded me that this is now a different guy than let's get it blubbblb, you know, than trying to be something else. He is trying to be greater than that. And you're right to be in different parts, being philosopher.

Which is why I mentioned Wycliffe because his whole thing was very much like, I'm a poet and a musician and maybe an actor and I'm a politician maybe and I'm a you know, force for great change. And, you know, I got Bob Dylan in my video. Yeah, philanthropy. Philanthropists. What are we doing? And I felt like, yeah, like, it's like Bono.

The Bono, I had a very depressing conversation with my goddaughter who was 22, 23, and her best friend who's the same age on the way back from the Maryland Renaissance Festival the other day, which was hilarious. My first time going. Wow. So. Okay. It was a whole thing. At my son was there. Yeah.

trying to be cool going in his hoodie. He just heard Thurn T last week, and he's like, can I try to crossbow? Oh, man. I don't think so. I don't want to tell you how to parent, but I'm going to say no on the crossbow. It was a little crossbow that, like,

you shoot, you're trying, like a dart thing. Okay, sure. It was like a nerve thing. Yes, they had an actual crossbow, and I'm like, no, it's not a thing. But anyway, so we're having an conversation, and we're all picking music at that. the end and somehow you too comes up and Ellie my goddaughter Maggie's friend only knows them

as the group that made you listen to their song. They played their album on your iPod. Yeah, that's, they deserve that. And it's so sad because she was like, I don't like you to. My friend goes, I don't like you to either. Those are different. I don't like their music. You don't like them because of that.

And because it just felt like weird and overbearing. And once again, like, well, I am choosing to use that word, if Bono had really had gotten out of his own butt long enough to understand that this was not going to endear you to people, forcing your music on people was not going to want. Because he was on his way being like, he's talking out of the conferences and he's at Davos and he's doing all the stuff. He's Steve Jobs.

Right. Yeah. Yes. And he's being greater than this Irish kid, you know, singing, you know, in black and white and the rain. The rain that's boistered him in. They were more like it felt snowy. He probably did that at some point.

Yeah, right. But yeah, I think that Will I am is incredibly talented, but like I said, there is something very calculated about him that makes him, I mean, I think all producers are calculated. It's like, you're not like baby face wakes up in the morning and goes, I'm just going to do a thing, right? There's a planning to it. But baby face, this thing seems more. like I'm a very cool person and I'm just going to be cool today.

And Will I am? It's like there's a. Yeah, there's a Dr. Evil plan of a world domination with. Yes. And we're he, I'm wanting not do. So once again, I'm not going to take a check out the brother's hand. Just to wrap up, we probably should have a cursory conversation about the song I got a feeling, right? Which which came out in, which came out in 2000.

And I see it often cited now as an example of Obama Corps, right, like this era of time, like super celebratory and optimistic, you know, inspired in part by the election. But like, this is also a song in the shadow of the Great Recession, right? Like, this is weirdly like both a straightforward party song and like a complicated song about forgetting all your troubles. And right now you have a whole lot of troubles. Like, do you see this I got a feeling as a party song or a song of like resilient? in the face of hardship? I think it's both. It's kind of like, come on get happy, but to like a club beat, you know, it's got like a,

going on get happy, which was one of those songs that was created during the Depression and stuff. It was like there were lots of that. Have yourself a merry little Christmas, which is a depressing. It's a depressing song.

It is. But it's also, like, it's about hope, and it's all of that era. So this, absolutely, I felt that. It was at so many weddings that I went to.

I was in my 30s, so I went to a lot of weddings during that time. So many weddings. I went to like, it was played like in the mall. It was like, if you were listening to a top 40 station, it was nonstop on the thing. And it was a song that my grandmother would have heard somewhere at some point, probably like changing the dial. It was on a compilation or something. But I think it is both like,

to just like those other songs, Depressioner's songs I mentioned, it was engineered, and I think maybe in the most organic thing that Will I Am ever did, that to me, that says, we want to party, we want to, you know, we're talking about, you know, Laham, you know, it's about celebration, but it's also like, it's reassuring. Everything is going to be, tonight's going to be a good night. Tonight's going to be a good night. And which is every bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah, I married into a Jewish family. family always play that song. Even the one I went to in

2004, that song was on the... Still there. Because to them, that's like celebration to us, you know? They played celebration too. I think my cousin made that playlist. But anyway, we're not the younger cousin who's bat mitzvah it was. But yeah, that song is a really non-cynical. Yes, that's true. which is that whole era was so bathed in cynicism and the carry over the irony of the 90s and the kind of like we care but not too much and that song cared.

That song did care. Which makes it a really great song. Yeah. I was going to ask you if you've ever danced to it and clearly you have like, is I got a feeling a different song when you're dancing to it, when you're at a wedding, when you're at a bar mitzvah, like there's a huge difference to me between a song where you're listening to other people party and a song where you're ostensibly partying yourself. Like, how does this song feel in the moments when you are dancing to it?

I have, I did not like that song until it was played at a friend's wedding. I made a mistake of saying that. She's like, what? Like, never mind. Don't worry about it. I was like, oh, I like that. Because, sorry. But sorry, Kim, but in that moment, there was, there was an ebulence.

There was a, you know, your friend is getting married and everyone is in a good mood and everybody is saying that that's what we walked into. When they were introducing the wedding party, we walked into that. And it's like the declaration that tonight's going to be a good night. So it has been decreed. It's been stated and said. It's certified now. Tonight's going to be a good night. and it was a good night.

And I think that when you are bopped along to it and everyone is in the same feeling, it feels different. It feels authentic. It feels good to say, particularly right now this dumpster freaking fire in right now, it feels good, I listen to it in preparation for this.

And maybe they're lying, but maybe everything is going to be okay. Maybe it is going to be a good night. I don't know, metaphorically. Totally. Leslie, this has been wonderful, as always. We're going to have you back very soon where you're going to talk about your experience at the Renaissance Festival for 45 minutes.

I'm very interested in your thoughts. Anything you ate, if you had a giant turkey leg, if you yourself shot the crossbow, I need to know everything about your Renaissance Festival experience. I got pictures. I would like to see the pictures. We are a video podcast now, so we have the technology to display those to everybody with your permission. Leslie, thank you so much.

It's wonderful to talk to you. Thanks very much to our guest this week, Leslie Gray Streeter. Thanks for our producers, Chris Sutton, Justin Sales, Juliana Ress, and Olivia Creary. Animations and Graphics by Chris Calliton. And special thanks to Cole Kushner, and thanks to you for listening. And now let's all go listen to I Got a Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas.

We'll see you next week. And here the Mona Lisa gazed into Mona's eyes in perfect health with no undiagnosed problems and her optic nerve in excellent condition. Anyone here got eyes like Mona? Mine are brownish. Not enough people know about their eye health. That's why OCT scans are included in every standard eye exam at Specsavers locations. Should have gone to Specsavers. Book an eye exam today.

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