Excerpt:"Peas & karats
The Black Eyed Peas bring the hip-hop bling
GEOFF BOUCHER
SAN DIEGO -- The man they call Will.I.Am has one of the busiest hard drives in hip-hop these days, and he carries it with him in a case marked "Will's Travel Kit." Earlier this spring, the leader of the Black Eyed Peas slid behind the keyboard of a computer in the mobile music studio that follows him on tour, loaded up the drive and clicked through a directory of his dizzying workload. There were chunks of the new songs he's producing for Nas, Justin Timberlake, Snoop Dogg, Macy Gray and Diddy, as well as a theme song he's producing for the new film "Poseidon" and recent remixes he's done for the Rolling Stones, Michael Stipe of R.E.M. and Busta Rhymes.
But the hard drive is more than music projects. Will clicked on a video file: "This is the Adidas campaign I did for the World Cup," he said, bringing up an image of kids playing soccer on a dusty field with their kicks keyed to a pulsing, Latin-flavored soundtrack. "And this one is a short film I did with Snickers; they're doing films because TiVo is killing commercials." The vagaries of the advertising world are important to Will because the Black Eyed Peas, who play Sunday at Portland's Rose Garden arena, are corporate America's leading hip-hop partner and proud of it.
The Peas are now on the Honda Civic Tour, a 35-city tour, and they have done commercials for Verizon, Apple iTunes and Best Buy. They rewrote one of their songs to accommodate a major NBA advertising campaign. They also are characters in a video game and have performed at the Super Bowl."