'Translation': Black Eyed Peas hit the third place for debut on Billboard's Top Latin Albums chart
The Black Eyed Peas have landed their first top five on any Billboard Latin albums chart for their new album 'Translation'. The Latin-fused LP, which features guest appearances from the likes of Shakira, J Balvin, Ozuna, Maluma, Nicky Jam, Tyga, El Alfa, Piso 21, Becky G and French Montana, debuted at No. 3 on the Top Latin Albums chart, dated July 4, and an additional entry at No 52 on the Billboard 200.
The 15-song record with eight Spanglish tracks is the group's eighth studio album and follows 'Masters of the Sun Vol. 1', which released in 2018. 'Translation' was released on June 19 via BEP/Epic Records and is Black Eyed Peas' first album for Epic after a long career with Interscope Records. It also marks a new beginning as the group’s first commercial set since 2010 and since the departure of Fergie to start a family (her son, Axl, was born in 2013). It has earned 15,000 equivalent album units in the week ending June 25, with 4,000 in album sales and the remaining units were for streams.
According to Billboard, "The Top Latin Albums chart ranks the most popular Latin albums of the week in the US based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. Units are comprised of traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA)." Black Eyed Peas' new LP tallied at 10,000 SEA units, which equates to 14 million on-demand streams for the album’s songs in its opening week.
In an interview with Billboard, Black Eyed Peas founder will.i.am detailed the inspirations behind 'Translation'. "We wanted to treat the album like a playlist more than an album," he said. "Curating a playlist, every song has to be the jam. Yes, you have to do new music, but you want to do charting music, and you want to throw other songs that complement [each other] so the listener enjoys it. Everything is a continuous set," he explained.
The singer continued, "'Ritmo.' What can go after that? If I were DJ’ing, 'Can You Feel the Beat'. Then it goes into 'Mamacita', and that has a reference to [Madonna’s] 'La Isla Bonita,' a white person’s perspective of Latin music. It’s like a continuous spot of our appreciation of Latin music. Then we throw a monkey wrench: It’s 'Super Freak', and I’m going to sing a Latin chorus. What’s the most typical Spanish phrase that everyone knows? 'Vida loca,' but the beat will be Afrobeat, and let’s put Tyga on, too. And that song will go into El Alfa, who’s the most creative artist in the Latin community. So everything is retro futuristic, because we’re taking ’90s and ’80s, but updating it with future sounds and Latin rhythms."
“I was able to produce 'Translation' and write in Spanish and sing in Spanish because of my colorful upbringings in East LA,” will.i.am told Billboard. “I wanted to make my childhood friends and their parents proud and let them know that I never will forget the colorful beautiful Mexican culture that I was raised in...out of all the Black Eyed Peas albums we’ve ever made, Translation truly represents how I was raised...”
