The new memoir by founding member of The Black Eyed Peas. Touchstone Hardcover/ Simon & Schuster. Out now.
Born Jaime Gomez in East LA, Taboo is a founding member of the six time Grammy Award winning group The Black Eye Peas. A Mexican American with Shoshone blood, he defied expectations early on. First by exploring other cultures outside his latino heritage, then by staying true to his dreams of becoming a star. After achieving unimaginable success with the Peas, the father of two found himself alienating band members, family and friends due to drug and alcohol abuse. After several years of living wildly, the East LA native who emulated Michael Jackson and Electric Boogaloo as a kid, decided to seek help after he rear-ended a commuter while high on prescription medicine and ecstasy in 2007.
GlobalGrind spoke with Black Eye Peas member two days after his crew’s appearance at the Super Bowl and hours after the release of his autobiogaphy/memoir ‘Fallin Up: My Story.’
I wanted to start off with your grandmother; you have a very special relationship with her. In the book you described sitting in the front seat of her pickup truck in her backyard. You used to pretend you were driving. Do you think there’s a connection to that type of imagination play and dreaming about making it in the world?
It’s definitely a part of the big scheme of things. Just to tie in the imagination, my grandmother would be sitting in the living room and she would say, ‘Okay you ready, Jim?’ She would turn on the music and say, ‘From Los Angeles, please welcome Jimmy Gomez.’ There was no audience: it was just my grandmother, and I would be performing for her. It was that imaginative thinking that I was performing in front thousands of people that my grandmother instilled in me. It was that joy and happiness that my grandmother felt after I was done dancing that inspired me to think that if I can make my grandmother happy, I can make the whole world happy with my music.
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Do you share the same experience with your kids?
Oh definitely. I’m very supportive of my son. My son, who is the oldest, is a DJ and an up-and-coming producer and I’m very supportive. Jaylin [my youngest] loves football, he loves baseball and dancing. Dancing is his biggest thing. And if they want to do it, I want to be their biggest cheerleader, their biggest supporter. And that’s the essence of our connection: being there for my kids, knowing that education is first and foremost but still letting them dream and chase their dreams.
Your book is co-written by Steve Dennis. How did you meet him?
Steve Dennis was one of the people I interviewed to see who I made the best connection with. To see who can write this story, this book. As soon I started to learn about what [Steve] had done in the past, aside from his writing capabilities and the people he has working with, I thought, ‘Yo this is the guy! We need to bring him to East LA so he can get a taste of where we come from.’ He had never heard of tacos, he had never heard of Mexican food. He didn’t know what a burrito was but once we put him into our world, he was very enthusiastic about it. And his fascination inspired me. If this dude is enthusiastic and he comes from London, he comes from a totally different background but he’s really interested in what I have to say, then there’s a connection there.
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The Peas on stage before they b
