It's All About Snakes & Drive-By's on Fergie's New Single "L.A. Love"

Fergie in her high school days

Hey, isn't that D.J. from "Full House." No, that's Cher Horowitz the Beverly Hills rich girl from Clueless. Uh-uh, it's Michelle Pfeiffer in her beauty pageant days. I'm gonna tell ya right now, that's Fergie the pop star, wearing a pearl choker and a plunging neckline. She's a California girl. And NOT the Katy Perry kind.

That pretty girl is Fergie in her high school days in Hacienda Heights, California. Her new song "L.A. Love" is all about California, despite the shout-outs to other places. Those groan synths are the things of nightmares. Really, the whole song sounds like she's creeping in a Chevy Impala to do a drive-by…while smoking a blunt. She's positively predatory when she sings "lay back, slow down" on that B-section, her voice vibrating on the word "lay" moving like a snake. My heart just dies for the weeping snake charmer flute on the chorus. That flute is drawing out the chola in her. (She does have Mexican in her blood).

Los Angeles-bred DJ Mustard produced "L.A. Love" and his signature "heys" make you feel like a thug not to be messed with. Maybe that's getting ratchet. It makes me think of Beyonce's lyric on "Grown Woman": "because I walk with a vengeance." It's that inner cool, bad-ass, whatever you wanna call it. It also makes you ready to party, ready to murder the dance floor. Fergie said on the radio yesterday that the one thing that's different now that she's a mom is she can't stay out as late. Fergie is a party girl from way back. She's also a cheerleader from way back and that's why she hosts those New Years Eve gigs on TV, full of energy.

Where are the big Fergie vocals? some may wonder, but she's a rapper on this song. What she lacks in clever lyrics she more than makes up for in flow. The way she says "Texas grill Cadillacs/threw me everything back" is like liquid. Press rewind. Oh, and Lun-dun!