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Dec 21st: Apl.de.Ap is home to the Philippines for the holidays and he’s playing Santa Claus to people close to his heart: poor children.
The 36-year-old Filipino-American rapper and record producer, known worldwide as one-fourth of the chart-topping hip hop group Black Eyed Peas (BEP), is doing a three-night series of charity performances that opened in Cebu City on Saturday (December 18).
The show resumes Wednesday (December 22) night at Republiq, one of the hottest new dance clubs in town located inside the sprawling Resorts World complex in Pasay City, and winds up on Christmas Day at The Mansion in Pampanga.
To set the ball rolling for the charity project, apl took out US$25,000 from his bank account as a personal donation. This would be added to the proceeds from the club gigs, and distributed to the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, Rotary Club of Rizal West and Philippine General Hospital (PGH).
The money will be used for school supplies and tuition in the foundation, Rotary’s feeding program, and medicine for young cancer patients in PGH.
“It’s important for me to give back. I’m in a position to help other people,” said apl, the moniker taken from his real name, Allan Pineda Lindo Jr.
The Pearl S. Buck Foundation sent apl to the United States when he was 11 years old for treatment of nystagmus, an involuntary movement of the eyes, and again three years later after he decided to live with his adoptive father, Joe Ben Hudgens.
He experienced hard times growing up, but he also cherished that period, which would later on inspire him to write ‘The Apl Song’ with BEP.
Success, he pointed out, did not happen overnight. “We worked hard at it. While we were trying to get signed (to a record label), I did odd jobs, like in construction… I also worked in a movie theatre where I used to mix cheese for the nachos, aside from being a cashier,” apl recalled with a laugh.
Meeting will.i.am (William James Adams, Jr.) – BEP’s chief songwriter and producer – was a fortuitous moment. “He was the first person I met when I arrived in the US. I remember our first conversation, he asked me, ‘You’re from the Philippines, what do you guys do there?’ I told him I like to breakdance and he went, ‘Oh, you breakdance?’”
Turned out that the two shared the same interests: breakdancing and rap music. “Since then we became best friends. Will came from a ghetto in East L.A. We had the same motivation and nothing could stop us from pursuing our dreams. We just kept going. Thank God we made it,” apl recounted.
Starting out as members of a breakdance crew named Tribal Nation, apl and will went on to form BEP in 1995. In 2003, its major breakout year, the group sold an estimated 27 million albums worldwide.
Last year, BEP became one of only 11 artists to have ever simultaneously held the No. 1 and No. 2 spots on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, with the singles I Gotta Feeling and Boom Boom Pow, from its fifth studio album The E.N.D.
For his Philippine charity club tour, apl brought along DJ Ammo, a co-producer of one track, The Time (Dirty Bit), from BEP’s new album The Beginning (MCA Music/UMG).
Apl described The Beginning as an extension of The E.N.D.: “It has dance tracks, but it has more love songs, too.”
Filipino friends DJ Joker and DJ Buddha are likewise on hand to help put on a good show Wednesday night and on December 25.
On Tuesday (December 20), apl entered a studio in Manila to record with a Filipino band, Faircatch – one of several groups he has picked to sign as talents on his own music label, Jeepney Music.
“Faircatch is a rock band. We will collaborate on some tracks. And then I’ll do it with the next band and keep going,” apl said.
He turned pensive when the Inquirer asked how he has taken the death of his youngest half-brother, Joven Pineda Deala, in February last year. Police authorities said Deala was murdered in Porac, Pampanga.
“I always say a prayer for him,” apl said, pausing for a few moments, on the verge of tears. “I always have him in my heart… I wish he was here to enjoy this success with me… I think about him a lot. I’m taking care of his daughter. She’s like mine now.”
Apl said he treated all his siblings like best friends every time he was home in Pampanga. He has also been able to provide for a sister’s education. “She’s now a registered nurse,” he beamed.
Apl is all praises for his mother, whom he called on stage to dance when BEP performed at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City a few years ago. “My mom now has her own job. She’s a smart woman, but whatever help she needs from me, I’m always ready.”
Before flying home last week, apl had asked her to look for a building, “because I want to put laptops in there and hire three teachers and it will be like an apl.de.ap centre where kids could go and learn about computers.”
Apl said he brought 20 laptops with him on the plane and these would soon be available for kids near the family residence in Pampanga.
Asked what are the things he can’t do now that he’s a celebrity, apl smiled and insisted that success had not spoiled him. “I still do the same things I used to do. I like to go malling… I don’t know if I can do that here, it might get a little crazy. But nothing’s changed, I still eat with my hands.”
-See Pictures of Apldeap at XMAS Event ( Pearl Buck Foundation):
  
-Credits: ATN, Anna; Edited by: adriph. | | | |
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