Book review: ‘Fallin’ Up’ by Taboo

The Black Eyed Peas don’t take the stage, as much as they swoop down on it like General Zod and his Phantom Zone friends in “ Superman II,” so one can only imagine what entrance they have planned for Sunday’s Super Bowl. The hit-making outfit behind “I Gotta Feeling” is set to play the big game’s halftime show, a gig that will find them joined by Usher and Slash, watched by tens (and tens and tens) of millions — and representing Los Angeles in the football world in a way that, one day, the proposed Farmers Field might.

See, for all their superhero get-ups and superhuman hooks, the Peas, as readers are reminded in “Fallin’ Up,” the new autobiography from Taboo, are L.A. — its multiculturalism, the sprawl, the single-parent families, the bus routes, the big dreams.

Taboo’s own dreams were rooted in weekend visits with his beloved grandmother to downtown to hear the mariachis play outside the Million Dollar Theater or at the open-air market, El Mercado. The costumes, the music: It all moved the young Jaime Gomez (pronounced “Hi-meh,” as insisted upon by his mother). “These guys are my kings,” he writes.

Taboo carried his ambition wherever he and his family went — from the Dogtown projects, to South Central, to South Gate and, finally, to Rosemead. (Random Black Eyed Peas factoid: For Taboo, the glamorous life for this Grammy-winning, über-successful musician meant calling “home” the couch at his mom’s house until he was 29.)

Taboo’s love of the mariachis gave way to dance, which gave way to dance crews, which led him into the orbit of Will.i.am (then WilloneX) and Apl.de.ap. The three eventually become a trio, and the Black Eyed Peas was born. The group’s story is the story of the L.A. rap/hip-hop scene of the 1990s, right down to Will and Apl’s ill-fated record deal with the ill-fated Eazy-E. (Stacy Ferguson, or Fergie, the fourth Pea, doesn’t enter the picture — and doesn’t help put the group over the top — until 2003.)

Along the way, Taboo deals (or doesn’t) with an absentee father and a critical stepfather. As a senior in high school, he fathers his own child, a son whom he ends up taking custody of. And then, this being a music bio, there are the drug woes, the DUI mug shot on TMZ.com, and the battle to get (and stay) clean.

Taboo isn’t a storyteller per se, but owing to the Peas’ ascendance, he does have stories to tell: Did you know, for instance, that Stonehenge is (sort of) in Sting’s backyard? That the latter-day Prince doesn’t like cussing? And that the latter-day Prince really doesn’t like cussing after he’s told you he doesn’t like cussing? (Uh, yes, Taboo learned that last life-lesson the hard way.)

“Fallin’ Up” isn’t one of the more artful accounts of life in the music biz (Jacob Slichter’s “So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star” comes to mind), but it is one you can imagine getting dog-eared and copiously studied by L.A. kids whose dreams are as big as the Super Bowl halftime show.

Ryan is the author of “Former Child Stars: The Story of America’s Least Wanted.”