Cheryl Cole to perform at World Cup with Black Eyed Peas

While England defender Ashley Cole is struggling to be fit in time for this summer's World Cup in South Africa, his wife, Cheryl, is guaranteed an appearance.

Buzz up!The Girls Aloud star will take the stage with American band Black Eyed Peas at a special concert in Johannesburg on June 10 to kick off the tournament.
Cheryl, who goes on tour with the band in May, is due to perform her single 3 Words with Black Eyed Peas' founder member Will.i.am.

"The World Cup situation is a nightmare for Ashley. There's a real chance his wife might make a bigger impact than him," The Daily Star quoted a Chelsea source, as saying.
"Even if he's fit to play in South Africa he'll have to watch her with this new bloke she's raving about."

"Let's just say I don't think Ashley will be buying a ticket for the official World Cup concert," the source added. (ANI)

Single of the Week: The Black Eyed

ROCK THAT BODY - Black Eyed Peas

THE whispers a year ago as the Black Eyed Peas were about to release their latest album was that the band were about to call it quits. Naming their album The E.N.D. didn't help quash the rumours, although the world's No 1 hip-hop group said it was called The E.N.D. in to end all speculation! Glad that cleared things up then.

Hopefully the rumours are long gone then, as the Peas are having their most successful period in their 15-year career. This single hopes to follow the run of No 1s at the top of the UK charts (likewise in America, where they seem to have permanent residency). Yes, the vocal decoder is heavily used, almost like Will.I.Am paid a lot for the privilege and wants to get his money's worth. But there's no denying, it's a club stomper that would be more at home on a Calvin Harris album. The Black Eyed Peas are a band willing to take risks, try new things, and genuinely care about the sound they make – all good in my book.

Alicia Keys and Black Eyed Peas to kick off World Cup

Alicia Keys and Black Eyed Peas are to perform at a concert in South Africa that will officially "kick off" this year's World Cup football tournament.
Shakira, John Legend and Angelique Kidjo will also appear at the event, to be held in Johannesburg on 10 June.
The 2010 World Cup begins the following day and runs until 11 July.
Jerome Valcke, of football's governing body Fifa, said the pop concert would be a "testament to the universal and unifying power of football and music".
"We are thrilled to have a concert of such magnitude and performing talent raise the curtain on the first Fifa World Cup in Africa."
The concert - the first to be held on the eve of the tournament - will be produced by Emmy award-winner Kevin Wall and his company Control Room.

Hip-hop collective Black Eyed Peas had a hit recently with I Gotta Feeling
The event will also feature musical performances by popular African artist and appearances by past and present football legends.
"2010 will mark the first time the Fifa World Cup will be played in Africa," said Wall.
"So it seemed fitting to celebrate this momentous occasion with a festival of live music from Africa and beyond."
Other artists lined up to appear include Malian duo Amadou & Miriam, South African band the Parlotones and Colombian musician Juanes.
Proceeds will benefit 20 Centres for 2010, an official charity campaign dedicated to building 20 public health centres across Africa.

Black Eyed Peas show delivers big hits and lots of boom boom pow

Before singer Stacy Ferguson joined the Will.i.am-led group, which hits the Palace of Auburn Hills on Tuesday on a bill that includes Atlanta rapper Ludacris, the Peas were a politically conscious alt-rap band with little commercial success.
Then in 2003, Fergie came on board, lending her ample pipes to the international hit "Where Is the Love?," which also featured Justin Timberlake, and the Peas instantly became a chart-topping pop group.

"I was a huge fan of theirs before ever working with them," says Fergie, 34 and married to actor Josh Duhamel. "I always loved that they were a live band with a hip-hop flavor."
She's talking on the phone from the Jacksonville, Fla., stop on the Peas' tour for last year's mega-selling "The E.N.D." (which stands for "energy never dies").

Just as Wild Orchid, the girl group she spent 11 years with without much success, was about to break up in 2003, Fergie met Will.i.am at a radio show in Los Angeles.

"I approached him backstage in the hall, as you do when you're trying to get your hustle on," says the singer, a showbiz lifer of Irish, Scottish, and Mexican heritage who got her start as a child actor on the show "Kids Incorporated" and voicing characters on Charlie Brown TV cartoons.

When the Peas were recording the 2003 album "Elephunk," Will.i.am (born William Adams) called Fergie in to sing on "Shut Up" and "the rest is history," she says.
For Fergie, that history has included the unsubtle sexual innuendo in hits such as "My Humps" (on the Peas' 2005 album "Monkey Business") and "London Bridge" (from her 2006 solo album "The Dutchess"). She's also made her Hollywood move, with a meaty role in "Planet Terror" (the 2007 Robert Rodriguez zombie-flick half of the Quentin Tarantino collaboration "Grindhouse") and "Nine," last year's Rob Marshall-directed, Fellini-inspired musical. Next she'll be voicing Jessica the collie in an animated feature adaptation of the "Marmaduke" comic strip.
"The E.N.D." is easily the best BEP album of the Fergie era and spawned the two biggest-selling digital songs of 2009 in "Boom Boom Pow" and "I Gotta Feeling." Ten months after the album's release, the hit singles haven't stopped: "Imma Be" is the No. 1 single on the latest Billboard Hot 100 chart. Fergie says, "We were very inspired by the electro scene. We wanted to make a dance album. It was exciting, but also a risk. We weren't trying to re-create the past flavor of the other records."

"The E.N.D." tour will be a suitably oversize pop extravaganza. "It's so big," she says. "It just feels so monstrous, the stage and all the costume changes and everything."
Expect to see the "Fergalicious" vocalist in a half-dozen outfits over the course of the two-hour show. "They're kind of difficult to get in and out of," she says. "It's very frenetic and kind of hilarious. A costume change is no joke."

Black Eyed Peas - Energy boosters

To call your album The E.N.D. can give a certain impression. But, far from it being the end for the Los Angeles-based Black Eyed Peas, the world's best-selling hip-hop group are celebrating their chart-troubling career on tour. "The E.N.D.", it turns out, stands for "The Energy Never Dies".
Here they are this week, fresh from three Grammy Award wins, performing in New York before their The E.N.D. world tour reaches the UK in May.
The R'n'B and hip-hop quartet have to this date sold 26 million albums worldwide since their inception in the early Nineties – and also made history with "Rock That Body" when they broke the Billboard record for the number of weeks spent at the top of the Hot 100 Singles chart. Here, they have had three No 1 singles, with "Boom Boom Pow", "I Gotta Feeling" and "Meet Me Halfway", and they have been a presence in the UK's Top 20 chart since The E.N.D., their fifth album, was released 10 months ago (it has sold more than 1.3 million copies over here).
Unusually for a band of their size and status, they are known for partying with their audience; after nearly every show on their tour, they hold aftershow parties where they DJ, dance and sing with their fans. The energy of The E.N.D. was inspired by the underground world of electro- and rock-infused house music – the band-leader will.i.am was fascinated with underground dance clubs back home in Los Angeles.
But it's not all play for the Black Eyed Peas. The group are said to take a studio with them on the road so that they can remix tracks and write songs wherever they are.

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