Chad Hugo

from SOHH by Soul Man
Pharrell Williams, producer, rapper turnt sanga, rocker, skateboarder, designer for Louis Vuitton and all around ego fuckin’ maniac is being spread pretty thin these days. Everyone knows Pharrell is a good producer. Although I am sure he would say that he was greatest. He’s created hits for Jay-Z, Mariah Carey, Gwen Stefani, his own group N.E.R.D. and like everyone else who seems to get some shine on behind the scenes he is ready for full frontal nudity, so to speak.

By full frontal nudity, I mean Pharrelll is ready to put his own wears on display on his upcoming solo album In My Mind. Below is an excerpt from Pharrell’s skateboardp.com website:

The fans, when they come up to me, they just treat me like I’ve had an album,” Pharrell says. “So I started thinking, ‘What am I doing?’ Maybe I should do an album.

In early 2005, Pharrell began working on In My Mind, an album that captures both his hip-hop and R&B personas. Pharrell explains, The hip-hop songs are more the introspective side of my view and how I look at life, and the R&B stuff is the more vulnerable side.

The album features appearances by Gwen Stefani, Kanye West, Slim Thugg, Daddy Yankee and a few other people. Pharrell is definitely doing his thing, but can I just say… I CAN’T STAND PHARRELL!

What is with this theme of domination everyone has? bell hooks would call it ‘patriarchial hip hop’. I believe that IF you can rap, sing and dance, then SAMBO get out there and do the damn thing. But there is something in this entreprenurial spirit that hip hop has created that a lot of people get confused. Yes build your brand, try new things, but people like Pharrell get on my fucking nerves because although he is a great producer he’s is no one’s singer, rapper or front man. Oohh let me piggy back with Jay-Z and get a hit called “Frontin”. And Oooh, let me try to reproduce Gwen Stefani’s success from “Holla Back Girl” with “Can I Have It Like That”. Clearly we weren’t feeling you so NO YOU CAN’T HAVE IT LIKE THAT!

Interscope didn’t believe it either hence Skateboard P was sent back to the lab and he re-emerges with a great song “Number One” featuring Kanye West. “Number One” is hot track because it’s well produced, and that is where Pharrell does a good job. But people are either getting it twisted or the machine is just pimping his popularity by allowing this Billionaire Boyz Club and all these other hair brain schemes. Have you seen the video?

Kanye is the star of that video. He upstages Pharrell, kinda like Eve did in Mary J. Blige’s video for “Not Today“. Pharrell is just an accessory to Kanye’s suprisingly subdued star power.

So now that I have ranted, almost inappropriately, I ask… Are you feeling Pharrell? Feeling him enough to go out and legally purchase his upcoming cd In My Mind? Or is this a get it while you can culture and Pharrell’s schizophrenic actions are just a sign of the times?

I love how Kanye repeats “World Famous” which is a throwback Malcolm McLaren “World Famous Supreme Team Radio Show”. Amerie puts a spin on the very same sample for a song that MAY appear on her upcoming CD. (But since I can’t get my m4a converter to work, y’all gotta wait til I figure it out before I can leak the Amerie. It’s fire though…)