Song of the Day

The Black Eyed Peas - "BEP Empire"
The percentage of people who don't know this BEP & DJ Premier collaboration exists is probably staggering. But yes, there was a time (two albums worth of material actually) when there was no Fergie in the Black Eyed Peas and the group was putting out underground hip-hop. The Peas were b-boys, breakin' on Rap City and putting out fantastic videos like this one. Their second album, Bridging The Gap, had this track, as well as collabos with Chali 2na, De La Soul and Mos Def. They used to be straight hip-hop, no pop. I'm not going to hate on the Peas now, because how many people would turn down the opportunity to go from backpacker to superstar. It's really a no brainer. But their music was so much fresher back on Behind The Front ("Fallin' Up" was my shit back in '98) & Bridging The Gap.