Black Eyed Peas’ latest music is a return to its conscious Hip Hop roots. With that mind, it’s no shock to hear the group examining the place of social justice in the current industry climate.
During an interview with Variety, the trio spoke about sexism in the music industry in light of the #MeToo movement, which promotes awareness of pervasive sexual assault and harassment, and criticized the lack of activism in music right now.
“Music is probably … it does a really good job at diminishing the power of a woman,” will.i.am said. “And that’s really sad. Especially Hip Hop, rock — sex, drugs and rock and roll. A woman is a resource in that sentence. It’s sad.”
Later on, will.i.am joked that the Isley Brothers’ hit single “That Lady” would feature the lyrics ‘Who that bitch?’ if it were released today. The thought prompted BEP’s Taboo to lament about the lack of support for activism in music.
“It’s sad that, in this day and age of music, we don’t have a huge support for activism as we used to,” he said. “In the ’60s, everybody was trying to make a statement with their music. It seems like more athletes are making a statement, standing up for causes, than actually in the music industry.”
Check out BEP’s thoughts on the music industry above and watch the rest of the interview below.
The only reason why the Black Eyed Peas are going back to the conscious route is because Fergie left. They are not fooling anybody.
I agree! Black Eyed Peas could get involved in #FreePalestine activism and encourage others in the music business to get involved too! I bet all the label owners and execs would support it too!
Free Kashmir! Free Cyprus! Free Kurdistan!
More like Black Eyed Piss yo
It’s the gentrification of hip hop. The mostly white middle class have been the largest consumers of hip hop for a couple decades now and the lyrics have changed to reflect it. In the 80s and 90s hip hop was still a black artform and being white and participating meant showing love and being down with all aspects of the culture. Nowadays hip hop is made to cater to whites and their culture. What white millennial is gonna want sit there and listen to Wise Intelligent preach about black empowerment? Black MCs have been affected by this too, kids like the Migos rapping blindly about their own hedonism ignorant that hustling subject matter originally made its way into hip hop as euphemisms and metaphors for the life and death struggles of slum life. BEPs can speak but the kids won’t listen, Tribe Called Quest dropped a great album the other year but no one but oldheads even listened to the shit.
Exactly.
hahah… the blame white people stance. White people were the biggest consumers of hip hop in the 80’s and 90’s too and there was a ton of conscious emcees that made a career from it. Blaming white people for how Migos and Future rap is naive at best, racist at worst. Does that mean white people are the sole reason Kendrick and J Cole spit conscious rap?
No, it doesn’t. Just like it’s not white people’s fault Future raps about doing drugs. Just like it wasn’t white people’s fault Lil Wayne rapped about codeine.
This comes off as so f*cking fake tho. They can call attention to the issues we face without trying to drag hip-hop. Let’s just ignore all the contributions that Snoop, Future, Akon, T.I., Killer Mike, Diddy and Jay have been making to causes all around the world….foh and get to work then.
coming from the same group that used a woman (Fergie) as a “resource” to increase sales by using her in sexualized marketing.
Aint it funny. 75% of these woman sexualize themselves then get upset when we respond appropriately lol
Whats that have 2 do w woman and marching
Really. They put out Behind the Front, and Bridging the Gap which were conscious, and then decided that they wanted to get paid, not preach.
Fuck yeah! I love the black eyed peas! More activism! Less bullshit!
SJW bullshit!
FK off! There are plenty of female artists who do the same to men. Sick of this fkn double standard.
Be like Prince and make your own flipping gender.
Thanks for censoring my posts HHDX. You SJW media lords.
Only thing worse than being objectified for a woman is not being objectified. Female musicians get naked and still expect us to respect their talent, bitch if you had talent you wouldn’t be showin your tits and ass.
And will.i.am you ain’t foolin nobody, your whole discography is full of those same lyrics you’re complaining about… remember working with Miley Cyrus when she was buzzing for twerking on stage?
Not everything can uplift the human spirit like “Let’s Get Retarded”.
How can you make something like ‘I Got It From My Mama’, particularly with music video, and come and spout this hypocrisy?