In a moved predicted by no one, the Black Eyed Peas have released their first single in four years since their self-proclaimed hiatus, a music video called Yesterday. The nostalgia-filled, hip-hop tribute to the golden days of rap notably does not feature the fourth member of the group Fergie.
However there seems to be no bad blood between the band members, with Fergie posting this to Instagram in support of the release:
Released via Apple Music, the tech giant’s new streaming platform, the video is harking back to a pre-Fergie era, during the nineties when the band originally formed. The video features a series of montages of original Peas members Will.i.am, apl.de.ap and Taboo perusing a selection of old records.
As they scour through the collection, some of hip-hop’s greatest and most revered records and artists pop up, such as Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising, Digable Planets’ Reachin (A New Refutation of Time and Space), and NWA’s Straight Outta Compton and Beastie Boys Paul Revere.
As each track gets referenced, the trio incorporate elements of that song into their own, creating a hybridity of hip-hop coolness. All throughout the song, the refrain is “I’m taking you back to yesterday”, but by the end it’s “I’m taking you to the future”, perhaps in reference to some forthcoming material we can hope to hear from the BEP sometime soon?
Considering that it’s the BEP 20th anniversary this year, we can be pretty sure they’ll release some new stuff sometime in the near future. When asked if she was involved in the 20th anniversary project with the Peas, Fergie said that, “I haven’t been in the group for 20 years, so it’s more their anniversary of being together for 20 years.”
Their last release was 2010’s The Beginning, with their last single being Don’t Stop The Party, a more pop-infused, mainstream focused album than their previous work. The internationally critically and commercially acclaimed group have sold approximately 32.5 million albums and 31 million singles worldwide. Hopefully this new epoch of the Peas will go back to their hip-hop roots, with or without Fergie we can’t say.