Fallin' Up: My Story - Hardcover

Taboo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1439192065 ISBN 13: 9781439192061

Publisher: Touchstone, 2011

Synopsis

Taboo, Grammy Award–winning performing artist and founding member of the Black Eyed Peas, shares the inspiring story of his rise from the mean streets of East L.A. to the heights of international fame.

Few bands can ever hope to achieve the sort of global success that the record-breaking Black Eyed Peas have attained, selling more than 30 million albums since their formation in 1995. From their album The E.N.D., which debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts, to The Beginning, the Black Eyed Peas continue to dominate the music scene. The group recently broke the all-time record for longest successive stay at the #1 position on Billboard’s Hot 100 list, and their song “I Gotta Feeling” became the first single to surpass six million digital downloads in the United States. But in this revealing autobiography—the first book to emerge from the group—founding member Taboo reminds us that great accomplishments are often rooted in humble beginnings.

Born in East L.A. in an area notorious for street gangs and poverty, Taboo was haunted by that environment, which seemed certain to shape his destiny. Yet, steered by his dreams to be a performer and assisted by fate, the young Taboo was thrown a rope when he discovered the world of hip-hop, where talent and love of the music itself transcended all. Supported by his one true champion, his grandmother Aurora, Taboo chased his dreams with a relentless tenacity. He refused to surrender, regardless of what life threw at him— including becoming a father at age eighteen.

But even after the Black Eyed Peas beat seemingly insurmountable odds and achieved stardom, it wasn’t all Grammys and platinum albums. Taboo delivers a searingly honest account of his collision with fame’s demons, including his almost career-ending struggle with drug addiction and alcoholism. He takes us deep into a world few of us can even imagine: a show-business heaven that became a self-made hell. But inspired by the love of his family and tapping anew into the wellspring of self-belief that had sustained him in the past, Taboo learns to keep his demons at bay, his addictions in check.

Full of intimate glances into the highest reaches of the music industry—including a visit to Sting’s castle, hanging out with Bono and U2, and, at forty-one thousand feet, the high-flyingest karaoke ever—Fallin’ Up takes readers on a revealing, personal journey through stardom—and one man’s triumph over adversity times two.

About this title

About the Author

Taboo is a rapper, singer and dancer and member of the Grammy award winning hip-hop group The Black Eyed Peas. He lives in Los Angeles with his family.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

LEAVING DOG TOWN

We all say we’re misfits in the Black Eyed Peas, and I really was born one. I’ve often imagined the looks on everyone’s faces when I arrived into the world on July 14, 1975, shortly after one o’clock on a baking Los Angeles afternoon. There I was waiting to burst onto life’s stage as this eagerly awaited, dark-skinned Mexican-American boy with Native American ancestry, and then I arrived . . . as light-skinned as could be.

“Oh look, he’s as white as a coconut!” were the first words that greeted my birth, spoken by my father, Jimmy.

With parents who were both dark and with Shoshone blood running thick on Mom’s side, this was not the shade of baby that had been ordered.

Uncle Louie, my mom’s brother, arrived in the room, took one look at me and said: “He looks like a long white rat!”

Mom said she was just grateful I came out fast.

I’m not saying I was a disappointment. I’m just saying that I was breaking the mold from the moment I came out of the gate. It should, therefore, have come as no surprise to anyone that a) I grew up feeling a bit of an outcast, and b) there was a good chance I’d follow through and be a nonconformist. From day one, it was clear that I wasn’t going to fulfill anyone’s expectations of me.

Nanny got it: she would later tell me that she knew I was going to be different from that first minute. But in her accepting eyes, “different” in a good way. I guess even then she could tell I wasn’t going to be your average pea in a pod.

I was born at East Los Angeles Doctors Hospital, directly off Whittier Boulevard—a seemingly never-ending street that today is crammed with markets and dollar stores but which was once a cruising capital for the young chavalos in their low-riders on the Eastside in the 60s, as immortalized by a seven-piece Chicano group called Thee Midniters. Not much came out of East L.A. back then beyond their 1965 hit “Whittier Boulevard,” which led to them being referred to as “the local Beatles,” though I doubt John Lennon and Paul McCartney sweated it too much.

At the baby shower a few weeks before my birth, my mom couldn’t stop dancing. She heard music and just had to start moving.

“Laura!!” everyone said—Laura was short for Aurora—“you’re going to have the baby if you’re not careful!”

“But I can’t stop dancing. I need to dance!” she told them.

And she danced and danced, and everyone laughed, for about two hours solid.

Mom says she knew I was going to be a handful then and there. It’s good to know that, even in the womb, I was injecting the Black Eyed Peas vibe, jumping around, rocking it, getting everyone on their feet. Mom said it was like that for the last three months of her pregnancy.

That’s why I like to think I started dancing even before my life truly began.

I also like to think that I gave Mom fair warning.

If you met me in the street and you knew nothing about the Black Eyed Peas and asked my name and where I was born, the reply could mislead you. I’d give you my birth name: Jaime Luis Gomez. I’d tell you where I first grew up: a Mexican-American community in East L.A. That would probably surprise you, because you might, as many do, mistake me for an Asian. If I told you the projects I grew up in and you knew the Eastside, I’d catch that look in your eye and I’d say, yeah, that’s right—the neighborhood nicknamed after a street gang called Dog Town. These are the stamps of my identity, about as informative as markings in a passport. They tell you nothing about who I am or what my story is, and what it further explains to me, looking back, is why I never felt I belonged from day one. Don’t get me wrong: no one is prouder than I am of my Mexican-American roots, but these are merely my roots and national identity. This information doesn’t completely define me.

Mr. Callaham, my sophomore English teacher, once said every story needs a good beginning, middle and end. I remember him saying that. It must have been one of the few times I was listening and not daydreaming my way through class.

The thing is, I didn’t much like the story that was laid out for me: the Latino who should understand his place in the world, stay loyal to the ’hood, get “a real job” and do the nine to five thing. I didn’t see a good beginning, middle or end in that.

What you’ve got to understand is that in my community, there was the story you were handed at birth—a carbon copy of the one issued to everyone else around you; a future of limitations that asks the dreamer that dares to be different: “What makes you think you’re so special?” I think that I was born with something of that Indian warrior spirit that Nanny talked about, providing me with a defiance that refused to respect pre-established boundaries. To me, you’ve got to be willing to smash your way out of any ice block that’s encased you. You’ve got to be willing to break out and be as original as you want to be, become the person you have the potential to be, as opposed to being the person others expect you should be. It is about ripping up the hopeless story and rewriting the dreamer’s script. Something innate within me knew this from being a boy.

There is a quote that me and my homie and best friend David Lara often remind each other of: “Those who abandoned their dreams will always discourage the dreams of others.”

I learned from an early age that few people tell you what is really possible, except for free spirits like Nanny. Because, if you become the one who does make it happen, then it reminds others of their own limitations and what they, maybe, could have done, but didn’t choose to. Find any tight community and then find the dreamer within it—and there’ll always be a gang of naysayers pissing on his or her parade.

That is why there is much more to me than where I come from. Because it is what was invisible—the determination, the belief, the perseverance—that shaped my story, and for those people who stonewalled me with doubt or never believed where I was headed, only one silent reply ran through my mind: Oh, you don’t think so? Okay, just watch me.

My mom, Aurora Sifuentes, and dad, Jimmy Gomez, met at a Mexican market on the Eastside. Mom was out shopping with Nanny, Aurora senior, when their paths crossed. It probably says a lot that I don’t know much more about the romantic part. Mom was a twenty-year-old student, securing qualifications that would ultimately get her a job as an official with the Los Angeles Unified School District, and Dad was a twenty-three-year-old mechanic. He’d previously had a relationship with a woman named Esther that produced a son—my half-brother Eddie who is four years older than me. I don’t know the details of that messy story other than Eddie ended up staying with Dad.

Mom and Dad fell in love, got married and she was pregnant with me at twenty-two, but the honeymoon period didn’t last long because, as Mom would tell me, there were two sides to my father. His better side was the kindhearted, affectionate gentleman. His bad side was the drinker, and, when this side kicked in, the good-looking charmer fell away and exposed the flawed man. He wasn’t a bad man, but alcohol sadly changed him. He would later get his act together, but not before it was too late as far as Mom was concerned.

Apparently, he performed a drunken dance called the “Pepe Stomp.” Basically, it involved nothing more technical than him stomping his feet on the spot, getting faster and faster. There was this one time when he lost his balance and fell backward into the playpen that was set up for my arrival. He crashed into it and was rolling around drunk. I wasn’t even born yet and Mom was already worried for my welfare. The final straw came during an argument when he picked up a bicycle and threw it at her when she was far into her pregnancy. The bike didn’t hit her, but almost flattened my half-brother Eddie who stood there wailing over his near-miss with this two-wheeled projectile. Mom was smart enough and strong enough to get out soon after.

That is why I don’t know my dad. He was at my birth and hovered around the edges for a bit, but he was one of those dads on paper and by blood, not by deed. He had next to nothing to do with raising me. Mom used to laugh that his favorite song was “Daddy’s Home” by Shep & The Limelites. Not bad for an absent dad.

I admire Mom for having the courage to make a new start and choose the life of a single parent. In many ways, it would have been easier to stay, but she took the tougher choice and a part-time job in a toy store near downtown L.A. She was no foreigner to hardship. In her childhood, home had once been a garage converted into a makeshift studio, shared with Uncle Louie and Nanny.

Nanny’s name was Aurora Acosta when she married Luis Sifuentes. I know nothing more about Granddad other than that he was always suited and booted, and he left her at an early stage of their marriage. I never have understood why I was named after the two most unreliable men in the lives of the two ladies who raised me: Jaime and Luis. Maybe I was intended to be the improved version of both men?

Mom always said I was handsome “like your father” but I personally thought he was on the ugly side, so I never thanked her for that. I had his nose, ears and name, but the similarities ended there. I’m tall, he is short. He is dark-skinned, I am light. I have ambition, he did not.

Nanny remained on amicable terms with Granddad, but, back in her day, a single mother of two standing on her own two feet was as good as marooned, so it was a good thing she was a survivor.

Her first priority was getting a roof over their heads, and she knew some friends who had garage space.

“I don’t have much money, but I’ll rent it from you,” she offered.

“And do what with it?” they asked.

“Turn it into a home,” said Nanny. And so this spot—no bigger than a den—was where the family lived for a bit, complete with heaters, furniture, and a small portable television, and she made it as comfortable as she could afford.

When it came to “new” clothes, Nanny made them out of whatever fabrics she could beg, borrow or find. She struggled big-time to support her children, but she’d take no heroine’s credit. “All that matters is family,” she once told me, “and the rest will take care of itself.”

I don’t think she needed a man after Granddad because there was only one man she ever trusted after that—and His name was God. The fact that she ultimately managed to buy her own home when her kids had grown up and moved out speaks volumes for the faith she had, and the impossible situation she turned around.

With that definition of what struggle really feels like, it is easy to see why Mom thought it was no big deal going it alone. But she wasn’t alone. She had me. And those next five years were to be the happiest time we would share. It was just me and her versus the rest of the world.

I could not see horizons as a child.

Everywhere I looked, there were walls, fences and gates hemming us in, and the great concrete slab of L.A. County Jail stood six floors high and all ugly-looking in the distance, about a mile down the road. I lived within a concrete jungle within the concrete metropolis of Los Angeles; a part of the city that the tourist bureau doesn’t promote; a poor vicinity that is a world away from Sunset Boulevard, Melrose Avenue, Beverly Hills, and the beaches.

The neighborhood—el barrio—was one of government tract housing built in 1942 for low-income Mexican-American families. “The projects,” they called it. The official name was the William Mead Housing Project, and it housed four hundred fifty cookie-cutters that stood back to back in bleak uniformity; two- and three-story brick blocks painted tan-red with a thick white-painted band separating each floor. The number and color of the front door were the only marks that set each unit apart. I swear that even the palm trees and triangular washing lines were in the same spot outside each block.

It was not a place where dreams were made, and life was tough because of all the unemployment, drugs, and crime. People’s lives seemed as cookie-cuttered as the housing units, and options were limited. But however bleak life seemed to the outsider, there was a strong sense of family, community, and the value of sticking together.

Home was a first-floor corner unit at the end of one of the oblong blocks of small-ass apartments. It was nothing more than a studio apartment with a grilled front door, and Mom and I were two out of an estimated 1,500 residents on site, bounded by the county jail on one side and the Los Angeles River on the other. The river ultimately fed into the Pacific Ocean at Long Beach, but that’s the only idyllic-sounding fact I can bring from the ’hood.

This first home was a special place because it represented the world I shared exclusively with Mom. The walls were all white and there was enough room for one red floral-print sofa that clashed with the yellow hard-backed chairs at the round wooden dining table. We shared one bed and had one black-and-white television set. The front door opened onto a balcony that, when I was pretending to be a soldier or warrior, became my look-out post on the world, under the spotlight of the California sun.

Nanny Aurora was a constant visitor, coming over on the bus from her place in South Central L.A., and all three of us would sit outside on that balcony, eating Nutty Buddy ice-cream drumsticks that she brought as a regular treat. Not a week passed without Nanny visiting, or else we got on the bus to visit her. The mother-daughter bond was fierce, and I, as the favorite son and grandson, was the lucky kid who got all the love and attention in the middle.

One floor below the balcony, there was a worn and scorched patch of grass. Scorched by the sun and worn by the wheels of my red Big Wheel bike. This patch was both my playground and stage as Mom busied herself upstairs, keeping watch as she listened to her disco vinyl collection of the Bee Gees, Donna Summer, and Chic. She was a bit of a disco queen, and if ever I hear Chic’s “Le Freak” or Lipps Inc.’s “Funkytown,” it always sends me back to blazing hot days playing outside my first home.

I spent my earliest years running around kicking a football and riding my Big Wheel on the surrounding paths, feet in the air, pretending to be “CHiPS” on highway patrol. Mom often sent me out in costume: as a warrior, a pirate, or a bad-ass luchador—a masked Mexican wrestler. She stuffed my shirt with padding and gave me a towel for a cape, and I pulled off some killer moves to win the campeonato—the championship—by nailing key matches with imaginary opponents. I was always pretending to be someone or something on that grassy “stage” because there was no affording the hi-tech Atari console and its alluring game cartridges.

I look back now and see how basic life was, but we didn’t grow up wanting or grasping for anything. We were the have-nots who didn’t know what it was to have. It was the same for all of the lower-income families, and we killed the hours by playing ball a...

About this edition

• Publisher: Touchstone
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1439192065
• ISBN 13: 9781439192061
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352