Taboo

With a cult following and Grammy under his belt, this Black Eyed Peas member counts fatherhood and getting out of jail as some of his all-time feats

Jaime Gomez’s 2007 mugshot takes but a few seconds to find on an online search—too easy that even a 5-year old armed with the proper dexterity and spelling can Google it.

Sometimes a wake-up call comes in your sleep—for others, it is punctuated by a night in prison. Known to the world as Taboo, his autobiography, Fallin’ Up, takes us through this (not so scary) Latino’s journey of being born in an area of poverty and violence, how a spunky grandmother helped mold him, being a misfit in his communities growing up, raising his son at 17 while moonlighting in clubs as a performer, struggling with drug addiction and alcoholism, rising above his personal demons—to the husband and father he is today.

BC: Do you consider yourself a religious man?

Taboo: No, I consider myself a spiritual man. I’ve been blessed with so many different things, and I really owe it to my grandmother for instilling the spirituality and instilling the positive outlook in life, and just going after my dreams. I think that it’s the spiritual aspect, but it’s also my grandmother shining down on me from heaven.

BC: After growing up for some time in East Los Angeles, did you ever feel like you were never gonna get out, or you knew something big was waiting in the wings?

T: The thing about it is that I lived in East L.A. for five years with my mom in a project at Dogtown, and I moved to Rosemead, which is the San Gabriel Valley, at the age of 10. So I was kind of bouncing back and forth from my grandmother’s house—which is in South Central—to living in San Gabriel, Rosemead, so I always knew that we were always gonna be moving, and that move was the essential thing that kind of kept me on my toes, because I was going from African-American neighborhoods to predominantly Mexican-Asian communities, so it was a very diverse make up of what I was exposed to at a young age.

To read the whole story, look back for a copy of BC Magazine's October 2011 issue on newsstands and leading bookstores. For more information, call 478-4172 or email info@bcmedia.ph