A former member of Black Eyed Peas is speaking out after a statement by Will.i.am, appeared to etch her out of the group’s history.
via: Page Six
Where is the love?
When Black Eyed Peas’ frontman will.i.am opened up to Wyclef Jean about feeling hurt that the band is not “considered a black group,” it didn’t sit well with original member Kim Hill.
“For you to make that statement as if the onus is on the black community to celebrate you and the band when you didn’t celebrate us. It’s almost like there’s this cultural smudging,” she responded via an Instagram video.
Wll.i.am spoke about the band’s 2004 rise to fame on Jean’s “Run That Back” podcast saying: “It still hurts a little bit [that] we’re not considered a black group because we got that big. And when you think of Black Eyed Peas, it’s no longer urban or black culture, which is not good for the black community that Black Eyed Peas is not looked at as a black group … because we’ve had international success.”
Hill joined the band in 1995, and the group toured with recording artists including No Doubt and Eminem before she left in 2000. Wild Orchid singer Fergie then joined the hip-hop act in 2002, and Black Eyed Peas went on to become one of the biggest pop bands of the aughts.
Hill felt snubbed by the will.i.am chat, saying in her Instagram post: “It almost hurts for it to slip off your tongue that a black woman had a part in something really magnificent, and I don’t understand it. I was really confused. I’ve heard in certain spaces that when you’ve had the opportunity to say my name, you don’t. But to… actually start 2021 off and actually see that you just would not talk about the evolution of the Black Eyed Peas at a time when Wyclef referenced it.” She added of the group’s start, “I was there.”
I definitely don’t think this conversation went where will.i.am was hoping it would go.
