Fergie Covers Paper

Hacienda Heights one and only, Fergie Ferg is stunning in red on the September cover of Paper Magazine. Inside she talkes about her momma anthem and more in the perfectly shot entree for the New York based independant pop culture magazine.

"I've never gone viral before!" Fergie exclaims. “My video has 70 million views -- what the hell is that?!" The video she's referring to is for “M.I.L.F. $," the sexy, dairy-drenched, motherhood-celebrating lead single off her ever-so-close-to- being-released new album, Double Dutchess. It's been a decade since the release of her cheeky, genre-hopping, multi-platinum solo album, The Dutchess; seven years since her marriage to actor Josh Duhamel; five years since her group The Black Eyed Peas, an electro-pop- rap colossus, went on hiatus; three years since the birth of her son Axl Jack and two years since she began building the new album. “If everyone's wondering what the hell's been going on all this time, I'm not sitting drinking mimosas on some balcony," laughs Fergie, putting it mildly.

When Fergie (née Stacy Ann Ferguson) joined The Black Eyed Peas way back in 2003, she had been living at her mother's house in Los Angeles, with all of her possessions in storage. She had spent the last year in therapy, trying to regroup after overcoming the crystal meth addiction that precipitated the breakup of her first band, Wild Orchid. Ready to begin work on a solo music career, she reached out to group leader will.i.am, whom she met years earlier when Wild Orchid opened for The Black Eyed Peas. She needed a producer, and he needed female vocals for The Peas' nearly completed third album, Elephunk. Their creative chemistry was off the charts, and after she contributed powerhouse lead vocals to “Shut Up," will.i.am., along with fellow members apl.de.ap and Taboo, asked her to become a formal member of the group.

Up to that moment,The Black Eyed Peas had been critically well-regarded for their quirky, socially conscious backpack rap, but the group didn't really find a mainstream audience until Fergie entered the equation. She had the range as a performer and a writer to complement and enhance the band's genre-bending sound, which incorporated hip-hop, pop and proto-EDM. She could go from sex kitten to swagged-out tomboy; she could rap; she could croon like a pop princess and she could wail like Nancy Wilson (the fact that she's gorgeous didn't hurt, either)."

Read more from Fergie over at papermag.com