Fresh Air - Pharrell Williams Sees Colors When He Hears Music

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

The animated film Piece By Piece traces Pharrell's early life as a boy growing up in Virginia Beach and follows his trajectory to a Grammy-winning songwriter, performer and producer. He spoke with Tonya Mosley about his synesthesia, the song Prince rejected, and disliking his own voice. Subscribe to Fresh Air's weekly newsletter and get highlights from the show, gems from the archive, and staff recommendations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. Go ahead on the set. Hey, Pharrell.

Hey, how you doing, man? You know what would be cool is if we told my story with Lego pieces. Seriously? Yes. Lego. Just be open. Yes, Lego. That's a scene from Piece by Piece, a new biopic about the life of music producer and multi-hyphenate artist Pharrell.

But to call it a biopic almost feels too simple. Like so much of Pharrell's music, the film is a mix of genres. It's a musical, it's a documentary, and it's a Lego animation all in one. It pieces together Pharrell's life growing up in Virginia Beach and the lows and highs of his ascension within the music and fashion industry. And did I mention the music? The film gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the making of some of Pharrell's top hits that he's produced both you can take a break

I'm hot Hot, yeah So hot, yeah So hot, yeah All I wanna do is zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom And boom, boom All I wanna do is zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom a boom, boom. Just shake your head. All I wanna do is zoom, zoom, zoom, and a boom, boom. Just shake your head.

Check, baby, check, baby, one, two, three, four. Check, baby, check, baby, one, two, three. Check, baby, check, baby, one, two. Check, baby, check, baby, one. Let's do it. Beautiful. I just want you to know. You're my favorite girl.

I'm a hustler, baby. I'm a hustler, baby. I just want you to know it ain't where I've been, but where I'm about to go. I just want to love you. Be who I am. And with all this cash, you'll forget your man. Don't be so quick to talk love me. Just let me fuck you. To the break state. It's me. Uh-huh, this my shit. All the girls stop and feed like this. A few times I've been around that track, so it's not just gonna happen like that.

Cause there ain't no hollaback girl. There ain't no hollaback girl. A few times I've been around that track, so it's not just gonna happen like that. Cause there ain't no Hollabackers There ain't no Hollabackers All's my life I has to fight All's my life I Hard times like y'all

Bad shits like y'all Nazareth, I'm f***ed up Homie, you f***ed up But if God got us, then we gon' be all right. We gon' be all right. We gon' be all right. We gon' be all right. Do you hear me? Do you feel me?

We gon' be all right. We gon' be all right. Academy Award-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville directed piece by piece with interviews from music industry heavy hitters like Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, Gwen Stefani, Justin Timberlake, Kendrick Lamar, and his partner from the Neptunes, Chad Hugo. There's even a cameo of the late astronomer Carl Sagan. And everyone, of course, is a Lego. Pharrell Williams, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you. Your voice is amazing.

The film is so cinematic, and I never thought I'd say that about a Lego film, but it is cinematic. Why Lego? Because when I was a child, my fondest memories of having toys and my earliest memories were the Lego sets that my parents would get me when I was really, really, really young. The idea that you get to like escape when you don't even know that you're escaping, because you're just literally ideating and imagining in real time as you build with these pieces. And whether you actually, whether you actually really build what the set is all about or you're just putting pieces together like what it does for the young mind uh and how it sets it free um it's just magical and at the same time i really also wanted like if i'm going to tell my story which i was never really interested in doing if i'm going to do it I want to do it in a way that like my children, which were

our old, we have our oldest and then our triplets were just being, they had just been born. So four young kids and like, how old were they at the time of this idea? Because this was five, six years ago, right? Yeah. At that point, our oldest may have been eight or nine. then our our babies had just been born and so they're now seven and my whole thing was like i didn't know how long the animation process was going to take but i definitely wanted them to understand the story as their dad would tell it i wanted them to be able to get it you know if you tell it through the guise of lego it's like okay they understand it's like a world right you know it's the only way it was going to happen if I was ever going to do it.

I wasn't interested in doing a biopic. No way. Why? Because for two reasons. One, I have such a high standard of stories. And I didn't really think my story would be interesting storytelling to me is an art form

and not everybody is good at it and you need really interesting components to the story for it to be compelling and then as a performer I just say who wants to see me it's a lot like um you're probably used to your voice at this point yeah but even still do you like hearing yourself on a voicemail it's

the worst i won't even listen to this for real right see i don't either right i don't look at my video i don't you know read my interviews i just don't. It's too much. My standards are too high. But I call it voicemail syndrome. So if you're saying you don't like it and you hate it, imagine an hour and change of it. I know. So the process, though, because like you said, it took five years because of the animation process to turn what was your life into a Lego movie. And one of the things that Neville did in this film was visualize your ability to hear colors and see sound. You talk about this often, synesthesia, which is a neurological mixing of senses. In the film, what's so cool is that when you make music,

the colors correspond with it. And then you give the piece of music as a musical note to the artist and it's a beautiful color you see seven colors right that denote uh notes can you explain that to us um if you take it back to when you were born all of your nerve endings sight sound smell taste feeling they were all connected and then when you turn one those nerve endings they prune and sometimes some of them stay connected and the ones that stay connected give you synesthesia and when they're connected they send ghost images and ghost information to the different parts of the brain and so you'll end up hearing a color or seeing a sound yes right but there's all kinds yep uh and when you go and do the research you realize a lot of like you know they're they're graphemic uh synesthetes too. And those are the people who can recite 26-digit numbers because they see the two as slightly tilted and they see the four as in burgundy. And so it gives them this information and it's great for them.

And what's amazing is a lot of musicians do. Tons for them. And what's amazing is a lot of musicians do. Tons of them. Have you worked with any of them? Because I was reading that Stevie Wonder might even have a form of synesthesia. And that makes sense because so much of his music he is describing. He is describing color. There is just like a really beautiful sense of that within the music. What I find fascinating is like, man, if he's never seen red before then how does he know what red is right how do we know that he's not saying orange yep but he thinks it's red and

there's no way to really verify that like but he is seeing red i mean he's a genius man i don't know i was just saying is you can go down a rabbit hole what's uh synesthesia but have you and yeah have you and an artist ever vibed over that? Yeah, because we all see different things. It utilizes the ROYGBIV, but it's not based on the ROYGBIV's arrangement. What do you mean? Meaning, you know, certain people hear chords and they don't necessarily picture the same colors. Everybody is very unique. I want to play a song

just to give us like a better understanding of how your process works. So I chose Milkshake, which I heard in a commercial recently. I mean, we're here. Time has really gone by, right?

That Milkshake is in a commercial. But Milkshake was a 2003 song performed by Khalees and written and produced by you and Chad Hugo as the Neptunes. Let's listen to a little. I want it, the thing that makes me what the guys go crazy for. They lose their minds the way I want. I think it's time. La, la, la, la, la.

Warm it up. La, la, la, la, la. That was Khalees performing Milkshake, written and produced by my guest today, Pharrell. Okay, what does Milkshake look like to you, Pharrell? It is like, the shapes are hard for me to explain, but it sort of zigzags. And those synth lines are yellow and brown for me. And the yellow goes from bright to mustard, marigold. And in there, it's just very stark brown.

What I've always found really interesting about your music, it feels environmental. I'm hearing just sounds that I hear in my everyday life. And that one in particular, there are the and like buzzing sounds and things like that. Yeah. That song came from a trip that I went to in Brazil and I just like lost my mind. I've never seen so many beautiful women all in, They were just everywhere. And forgive the objectification when I say that. Yeah. But that was the impression that it made on my mind at that time. I don't know, 20 years ago.

Right, right. I was, you know, I was a kid. Really, you're just like, whoa, I'd never seen anything like that. Where am I? And if you could put that energy and feeling, if that could be sort of transmutated, if you will. Into a song. Yeah, that was the attempt. One of the things that the film does is give us a grounding of you as a young person coming into yourself.

And synesthesia is a condition that you don't know any other way because that's how you've always been. But when did you realize that others may not see the world the way that you do? Oh, when you talk about it in a conversation and they kind of be like, what? What'd you say? What colors? You mentioned how when one of your senses is being blocked, basically sensory deprivation, it allows your mind to wonder and be imaginative. I was really interested in this because I've done like the sensory deprivation tanks and

I thought it was so interesting like to hear my heartbeat in my ears. I was wondering as part of your process, do you create for yourself sensory deprivation at times so that you could actually hear your creativity or imagination? Well, that is like a controlled environment where you have the ultimate sensory deprivation, what you're talking about, those chambers. But a simpler version of it is just like when you're in the shower, you know, and the water's just consistently running and it creates an effect of white noise. And that's the reason why you can think clearly when you shower. Ideas come to you. Do ideas come to you?

Of course. Ideas come or sometimes people sing in come to you? Of course, ideas come or sometimes people sing in the shower. That's the reason why they do it is because that consistent noise, that white noise is particularly freeing to the part of your mind that wants to just iterate and not be be distracted by environmentally distracted. So running water, being near water, being in water, a bath, a pool, seeing the ocean, standing in the shower, washing my hands in the sink, it does it for me. I think we learn in the movie that happy came from running water for you that was a cinematic liberty okay when it was a way of just like sort of simplifying how the process came about i was in the studio racking my brain for that song and after after nine different songs and versions of something to fill in the blank for that movie, the song is a sarcastic answer of frustration for a rhetorical question.

How do you make a song about someone so happy that nothing can bring them down? I mean, like, get out of here. Okay, so it's 2013. You're tasked with writing music for Despicable Me 2. As you said, you're racking your brain. And, like, nothing's coming up that, like, they love, the executives love. And then this happy song comes up. Was it a hit immediately or did you have to sell it as well? They got it. But then all of a sudden, when the movie came out, they went to go try to work it at radio and they couldn't get it to work at radio because it was alien. It didn't sound like anything else.

So radio stations wouldn't play it? we did the video six months later when the song was included on the DVD. There were DVDs at that time. And there was a budget to do a video for the song since we loved it as a companion piece to sell the DVD. One of the things you discovered that you talked about a lot, but it's so powerful to me because it articulated a feeling that I felt is like so many people told you what that song meant for them, but what that revealed to you was the pain that many people are in, almost the opposite of happiness.

Oh, I'm very empathetic. So as they're telling you what they went through, it's heavy, you know, and I absorbed it in a way that like it was just a lot for me. I want to talk with you a little bit about working with artists because there's this story of you and Snoop Dogg working together that's told in the film and you all collaborated on the 2004 hit Drop It Like It's Hot. Let's listen. We'll be right back. Pop it like it's hot. I got the rolly on my arm and I'm pouring Chandon and I move a best friend. Cause I got it going on. I'm a nice dude with some nice dreams. See these ice cubes.

See these ice creams. Eligible bachelor. Million dollar boat. That's whiter than what's spilling down your throat. The phantom. Exterior like fish eggs. The interior like suicide wrist rad. I can exercise you.

This could be your phys ad. Cheat on your man, man. That's how you get a his-ed. Kill it with the green. That's Snoop Dogg's Drop It Like It's Hot, which was produced by my guest today, Pharrell. And Pharrell, Snoop Dogg said in the movie that, I want to get this right, that you were the first to allow us, the public, to see the smile in him. And I thought that was so tender. And it made me think, are you really responsible for Snoop Dogg becoming America's uncle? Because, you know, after that song, he did become this force that, you know, we now see him beyond, like, that persona as the hard West Coast rapper. Do you understand what he meant when he says that, like, you allowed us to see the smile in him through that song?

You know, when he says all those really nice things, I'm always just always taken aback by it. And I don't know if I really get what he implies. But I'm honored that he associates me with those types of reflections. Well, what did you see in him for that song? Because that song is light. It does provide like,

you know, it's got the groove, but it also has like a lightness to it. Well, it's interesting that you see Drop It Like It's Hot as like the lightness. And I guess I never really looked at it that way.

I mean, at the time, I just knew the traumas was hitting hard and it felt good. I don't know if I had ever really given any kind of emotive analysis of it. But I guess you're right. It's not dark. Like, you're right. That's true. I never saw it that way until you said it. I mean, well, you've said that you often try to reverse engineer the feeling that you feel about an artist when you all are first working together so that you can come up with that sound. Can you say more about that?

Well, it's the energy that people have when they walk in. It's what they say that they're looking for. And then it's what their voice and energy tells you that it needs. It's sort of a combination of all three. Every once in a while, someone walks in saying they want one thing, and I'm like, no, you don't. Or I disagree, or I just don't see that in you. And I'm not always right.

Sometimes they go out and go do it somewhere else, and it's like, damn, you know what? I didn't see that. But that's me, though. I'll tell you in a heartbeat, man, I just didn't see that. But that's me, though. I'll tell you in a heartbeat, man, I just didn't see it. Our guest today is Pharrell Williams. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air. This message comes from NPR sponsor Organic Valley, a co-op of small organic family farms. Stony Pond farm owner Tyler Webb explains

how they nourish their cows on their organic dairy farm. We do have to focus on feeding them top quality forages, utilizing like rotational grazing methods to ensure that what the cows have access to is top quality nutrient-dense forages so that they can make top quality nutrient-dense milk. Learn more at ov.coop slash ethically sourced. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com.

T's and C's apply. When voters talk during an election season, we listen. We ask questions, we follow up, and we bring you along to hear what we learned. Get closer to the issues, the people, and your vote at the NPR Elections Hub. Visit npr.org slash elections. This election season, you can expect to hear a lot of news, some of it meaningful, much of it not. Give the Up First podcast 15 minutes, sometimes a little less, and we'll help you sort it out. What's going on around the world and at home. Three stories, 15 minutes, Up First every day.

Listen every morning, wherever you get your podcasts. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. And today my guest is multi-hyphenate artist and music producer Pharrell. We're talking about his new animated biopic, Piece by Piece, which is about his life growing up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and his career in the music industry, creating hits like Drop It Like It's Hot, Get Lucky, and The Phenomenon That Was Happy. The film is done entirely using Lego animation. You have this ability to capture the essence of an artist. There's times, though, when artists don't want what you're giving.

You said so nicely in the film, I wrote this song for Prince and he didn't want it. It ended up being a hit for you. But what's the story behind that of you writing a song for Prince and he not accepting it? Well, he was different. You know, he had there was you know, he was one of those people that like he's a musical savant. There's not an instrument he couldn't pick up and play. He's a brilliant writer. Vocally, he's incredible.

He was an incredible performer. And he wrote and produced for so many people. So in his mind, it's like, you know, it's caveats, buddy. I know. And one of which was like, do you own all your masters? If you don't own your masters, we can't work together. I was like, whoa. Was he one of the first to say that to you? Had you heard that before? And I was like, interesting. And, you know, now I do own all of my master recordings. And I'd be happy to square off in a conversation about the business of religion versus the necessity of faith. At that time, it felt, was it over your head? No. I just was young and was like, for real, okay, whatever. You know?

Yeah. Not knowing that he wasn't going to be here that long, you know? What year was this? I wasn't, I was incredibly respectful. I mean, he was the GOAT then. He still is. You know what I'm saying? I don't know.

This might have been like the early 2000s. The song was frontin', right? Yeah, but that was just the music for it at the time. I was wondering a little bit. I wanted to talk to you for a minute about your singing voice. How did you find your singing voice? Because up until the moment when you decided to become this solo artist with your own music, you were making beats for other people

and did you always know that you were a falsetto like how did you find that voice I had a problem with my voice for many many many years because I that was just it I didn't feel like I had found my voice I always thought like my tone sounded like Mickey Mouse. The next time you listen to front picture Mickey Mouse, you can't unsee it. Stop. I swear. That's one. Now that's just my tone. Then there is skillset. Yeah. Not being flat. I definitely didn't use any kind of tuning back then. So I was flat all over the place, sounding like a hot vermin, just sounding crazy. And my standard is super high. Remember I told you that's the reason why I didn't want to do a documentary. My standard is how I work with great singers.

I work with Beyonce before. I work with Rihanna. I work with like people who really can sing. I work with Shakira. I work with Kim Burrell. Yeah. I work with Rihanna. I work with people who really can sing. I work with Shakira. I work with Kim Burrell. I work with singers. I work with the Clark sisters. I know what singing really, really, really is.

The craft of singing is a real thing. How did you get over it then if you felt like you sounded like Mickey Mouse? Because there was a part of you that wanted it. You wanted to be a solo artist. You wanted to be a star. You wanted to be successful. That was ego when I did Frontin'. I wanted to show that I was known for rapping

and making beats at the time, and I was like, yo, I'm going to go do this thing too. It was more of a flex. And then I looked up and was like, oh, but then you got to go out there and go tour it. And I hated touring. What don't you like about it? I love being all over the world. I hated staying in different hotels and not really having like the right options that I felt like I wanted to.

I was always that way. I was a very particular child. You know, I like what I like. And when I can't have what it is that I like, I'm very routine. And I didn't realize that. I didn't realize a lot of things until later in life. But my issues were, like, that I was very hardwired for regiment and consistency. And I don't like new environments but i love man touring with nerd and going up like sydney or you know or amsterdam or like london brixton shows but i hated i didn't really enjoy

like the hotel accommodations and i didn't really like being on the bus all the time. I was like not into that at all. So, you know, it was just very a blossoming music industry there. It wasn't known for that. It was only that when Teddy moved there and brought his studio and like his whole entire business outfit there. That's how we got into the music industry. But other than that, it would have never happened. So there was no one to really show us the ropes. It's not like being here at LA. Our guest today is Pharrell Williams. Here's his song Frontin' from 2003. I think I asked a selfie. I'm going to get with you. Don't want to sound full of myself a rude, but you ain't looking at no other dudes,

cause you love me. I'm sorry, baby. So sexy. So you think about a chance, you find yourself trying to do my dance, maybe cause you love me. You do it well. chance you find yourself trying to do my dance maybe because you love me we do well so then we tried we touched I know I wasn't there and I was going to tell you. I know that I'm carrying on.

Never mind if I'm showing off. I was just frontin'. You know I want you, babe. I'm ready to bet it all. Unless you don't care at all. But you know I want you. You should stop frontin', babe. Trying to be the best girlfriend you could be. We'll be right back after a short break.

I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air. It's a high-stakes election year, so it's not enough to just follow along. You need to understand what's happening so you are fully informed come November? Every weekday on the NPR Politics Podcast, our political reporters break down important stories and backstories from the campaign trail so you understand why it matters to you. Listen to the NPR Politics Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. This message comes from critics at large. Join the New Yorker's writers as they dissect the latest in pop culture, television, film, and more. From the romanticization of Las Vegas to the obsession of tarot cards, tune in every Thursday to deepen your knowledge.

This message comes from the Open Book with Jenna podcast. Join the Today Show's Jenna Bush Hager for inspiring conversations with celebrities, experts, and authors. Hear from guests like Stephen Colbert, Nicholas Sparks, and more. Search Open Book with Jenna to follow now. This is Fresh Air, and today we're talking to multi-hyphenate artist and music producer Pharrell about his new animated biopic, Piece by Piece, which is about his life growing up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and his career in the music industry, creating hits like Drop It Like It's Hot, Get Lucky,

and The Phenomenon That Was Happy. The film is done entirely using Lego animation. You grew up in Virginia Beach. Can you describe where you grew up, Atlanta's housing projects? It was public housing. We lived on a federal subsidy. So, you know, government cheese and, you know, all those essentials, government addition, like, you know, that was the vibe. Yeah. When you live in those neighborhoods, you're really living next door and right on top of each other. The units are not that big. So a lot of the people, the tenants spend a lot of their time outside. And so you're in a community that is closely packed. The units are facing each other. So almost all the structures of the neighborhood are forming courts, courtyards. You are facing each other, oftentimes maybe even pitted against each other. And usually, if you're lucky, there's two ways in and out of the neighborhood, but most of the time

there's only one way in, one way out. And it produces this type of person. Outside looking in, people were afraid to go in there. Inside looking out, it was very magical because everybody was so close in proximity. It produced, you know, you talk about like carbon, right? Black, you know, that heat, that pressure, that time produced a lot of diamonds. There were a lot of athletes that were incredibly gifted, a lot of artists that were incredibly gifted. Now, the odds are pretty much stacked against you because your teachers need to see what you have in you and in terms of your propensity and not all of the education didn't always meet us in the intersection of where we were how we process information to like thinking about what we were going to do in our five and ten year and 15 year trajectory they weren't having those kinds of conversations so yeah that was what it was like to be on a federal subsidy it's like

you're an outcast before you even step foot outside the neighborhood you don't even know it was so vibrant the way it was shown in the movie at the same time though which because we didn't want to make poverty porn that's the thing it's like i said outside look it in you think oh what was me and so poor man we were having so much fun you go in that neighborhood you see 20 kids doing wheelies on their bicycles from light pole to light pole and you felt like and i understand this feeling that there's so many like there's so many talented people you ask yourself why you that's that was it why me because i knew i was the least talented person in my neighborhood.

Adanis was and is teeming with really talented people, all the housing projects. Do you ever feel survivor's guilt? No, never survivor's guilt. Just more just like just questioning, just trying to understand it. Because if I don't know why, then I'm like, well, how long is it going to last? And I don't I don't know why. Then I don't know the when. If I don't know when, then I don't, you know, do I really understand the what? Do you feel like, you know, now?

Oh, yeah. My job is to hold the door open. Yeah, for sure. I love how you described it many years ago. You said that in many ways it feels parallel in your mind conceptually to America itself because it's progression that you're in love with, but it's also like untapped potential. It's a place with so much untapped potential. Yeah. Can you say more about that? Oh, it's a beautiful place. It's a second tier market. And it is still teeming, teeming with low hanging fruit. And if you're willing to take the time out to fly there and go shake the tree yourself, you actually get some of the sweeter fruit to fall. It's there.

That's so interesting because like, as we will see in the film, as you mentioned, record producer Teddy Riley discovered you and the Neptunes at a talent show. And just to give people a little bit of the backstory, he set up his studio in Virginia Beach, Future Recording Studios, right across the street from your high school. How did you and Chad prepare for this talent show? We just had Chad's keyboard, you know, the stuff that we had programmed in there. And we just went out there and did what we could. What's so cool about Teddy Riley coming to Virginia Beach? It's like he didn't really even have that much of a connection to Virginia Beach.

Like it seems so serendipitous that he would say of all the places I'm going to put a studio in Virginia Beach. And he talks about why he ended up doing that Virginia and chose right there on Virginia Beach Boulevard, literally right next to my school, a five minute walk. And not five years before we were there or five years after, like literally while we were there yeah i mean he had like bobby brown pulling up to the studio you know getting out of like expensive foreign cars with furs on i had never seen a fur jacket a short fur jacket or let alone dudes wearing furs like i didn't i think that's like a new york thing or like something you would see like mobsters with but like we didn't see that and he was making amazing guy music and making amazing this is before black street amazing guy music he was making amazing guy music and making amazing, this is before Blackstreet, amazing guy music. He was making Bobby Brown music. You know, he had just done Dangerous for Michael Jackson.

We were like, who is this guy that like Teddy Riley, like one of the greatest producers ever. And we moved where? And so after he saw you guys in that talent show you you worked in his studio for a little bit what did you learn from working in his studio well i learned studio etiquette be quiet when like masters are at work um and i learned very hard lessons about that that was like man why don't you change that quarter you know i mean you should use a different snare you're like what i never thought i'd see it but we got to see Rump Shaker in Lego form in this movie, the actual video. Which is crazy.

It is crazy. The video, you know, the legendary iconic scene from the video is the woman with the saxophone. And you guys actually have her in Lego form in sax. But people will learn the story in the film. But what verse did you write for Teddy's rump shaker? The verse that he says, the one where he's chatty, ready with the Teddy, ready with the one, two checker, that part. You call yourself during those early years, you said it a few times during our conversation, like arrogance, hubris. And can you say more of what you meant by that?

Like, what did that look like, a young Pharrell? I just didn't know no better. I just thought, oh, like, because I came from an era of like people bragging, you know, you would beat your test. You would pat your back. I'm the best. I'm this. I'm that. You know, you know, you saw a lot of like really greatest of all time people ali you know michael jordan you know michael jackson prince you know michael had humble energy but if you

he'll tell you he was the greatest right and that was his goal so you dealing with that then you dealing with every rapper saying they're the best they're baddest they're this they're that it's just it was just everywhere all the athletes the artists you know the any and everybody of note right was would would would would champion their brand with borderline hubris or full-blown, like, arrogance. And you would have to be good enough to back these things up. I feel like you couldn't be any other way, though. I mean, if you're coming from nowhere, essentially, you are the hype man. You're the one that's got to tell people, I'm good.

Yeah. But then, like, at a certain point, I met Nigo-san out in Japan. And this guy. And who is that, just to let people know who don't know? Nigo is my partner in Human Made. He's a Japanese founder, you know, apparel and footwear designer. When I met him in Tokyo, you know, he had more Rolls Royces than me and he did not brag and he didn't say anything at all really he just would like pull up and you just be like wow the power of the silence

that changed me I was like man I don't need to brag and then like you know and that was that started the process that was like 20 something years ago and't need to brag. And then like, you know, and that was, that started the process. That was like 20 something years ago. And I still kind of bragged, but I took note that like he had way more impact and he didn't say anything. He just pull up or he just put that on. Yeah. Or, you know, he'd just be doing the most, but not saying anything. Right.

You know, doing the most, but saying the least. And then like when I turned 40, then like, you know, I had like a series song, a series of songs go number one that were commissioned for people. They were looking for specific things. It wasn't just me waking up going, I'm gonna do this for you.

And this is what you need. It was more like the universe came to me with three different things that I needed to do. And when I did them them they became bigger records than anything i had ever done before so that like it it humbled me it made me cry it was like well okay all this time i thought it was all about me and you know i'm the genesis of this of what i'm doing and you know i come up with the impetus and the universe was like, nah, you know, you had to be frustrated. You tried it nine times and it didn't work, did it? And then I decided that you would have some success.

The universe says to me, you know, and it was three times that year. I had three number ones and was like, OK, what were the number ones? You remember blurred lines uh get lucky and um happy what a year my gosh that was a summer yeah that was a summer blurred lines is an interesting one because you learned other lessons from that i mean a lawsuit came out of that uh marvin gaye's uh family said that it was very similar to a record of his. Yep. Did this change the way you approach music, approach when you're wanting to have a similar sound to something else, to call back to our memory? It's confusing to me, honestly, Pharrell, because so much music calls back. You know what I mean? Well, that's the thing. But is it calling back because it is a familiar feeling or is it calling back because it's actually using the same elemental building blocks of the music? And is it protectable?

Those were the questions that were up. Right. Right. And the universe did something because I had up until that point, I had only graduated high school. But I went back to school and got my master's in music theory because I wanted to understand why we lost that case. When I knew fundamentally what the differences were. And, yes, I got my master's and working on my doctorate. You're working on your doctorate,

is it in music? Because I have three honorary doctorates right now. And I felt like the universe was telling me like, listen, you need to like go back to school. Is it in music theory? Yeah, music theory. How did that change your approach though to producing music? Oh, I mean, I just, I have always known music. I was classically trained as a percussionist, but when it came to like the harmonics, it was always by ear. So I was instinctively learned, but now I have an academic understanding for what it is that I'm actually playing when I'm playing things with harmony. Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest today is Pharrell. We're talking about his new animated biopic, Piece by Piece. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air. This message comes from Pushkin. In Revenge of the Tipping Point, bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell returns to

the subject of social epidemics and tipping points and the dark side of contagious phenomena. Available wherever books are sold and wherever you get your audiobooks. This message comes from the podcast Strict Scrutiny. Join law experts Melissa Murray, Leah Littman, and Kate Shaw as they break down the biggest legal headlines and SCOTUS decisions. New episodes drop every Monday. Subscribe to Strict Scrutiny wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube. This message comes from the Pop Culture Moms podcast. Best friends and pop culture enthusiasts Andy and Sabrina seek advice from the moms we love most on TV and movies, exploring the highs and lows of parenting. Find Pop Culture Moms wherever you get podcasts.

This is Fresh Air, and today I'm talking with multi-hyphenate artist and music producer Pharrell about his new animated biopic, Piece by Piece, which is about his life growing up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and career in the music industry, creating hits like Drop It Like It's Hot, Get Lucky, and The Phenomenon That Was Happy. The film is done entirely using Lego animation. Gosh, Pharrell, one of my favorite Henry Louis Gates PBS Finding Your Roots episodes was yours. You learned about your ancestors. In particular, you actually learned about some of your great, great, great aunts and uncles who were born into slavery in 1852. And the interview with Gates found that they were part of this slave narrative project, which documented the oral histories of formerly enslaved people. You had a chance to read from that. And in this clip I'm about to play,

you're reading a description of your aunt. We lived in log houses with stick and dirt, chimneys. They called them the slave houses. I worked on the farm, cutting corn stalks and tending to cattle in slavery time. Sometimes I swept the yards. After working all day, there was a task of cotton to be picked and spun by them. What kind of people? What kind of people? It puts a very vivid, intense context behind what it means to be African-American.

And I thank God that I got to hear it when I'm so sorry they went through this. Oh, nobody should have gone through this. It's a lot, man. Oh. I have to say I am forever changed. That was my guest Pharrell on Finding Your Roots reacting to the description of what his relatives endured during slavery. And

it's a powerful moment because you get to hear what their daily lives are like, what they were doing from hour to hour. And it's always a gift for us to know. I felt like I was living vicariously through you, you being able to find out the details. You said it forever changed you. How has it? Well, I was living vicariously through them, reading these things, and I just felt like it was such a gift to have that connection. You know, as Black people in America,

most of us don't have a connection to our lineage, our ancestral lineage in that way. We just don't know. You know, not like a lot of our other sibling species of different demographics who do know their ancestral lineage. They have their cultural history. And so they know. And so when they speak, they speak from a different place. There's a confidence in their tones because, you know, where you come from and because you know who you've been you

know who you are and you know which who you want to be and we don't have that now you have a little bit of it yeah it's a very big difference and so you feel difference and you feel different and you feel more solid when you pivot there's a lot more connection to the ground. And the gravity of not knowing is not pulling you down. But now you are using that, you're harnessing that gravity to take bigger steps forward now. It's different. Well, Pharrell, this has been such a pleasure to learn about how you got to this moment. And I really thank you for your time. Thank you. Pharrell Williams' new animated biopic is called Piece by Piece. It comes out in theaters October 11th, and the soundtrack to the movie

will also be released the same day. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, actor Jeremy Strong, who played Kendall Roy on HBO's Succession, in the new film The Apprentice, he plays Roy Cohn, who was chief counsel to Joe McCarthy's Senate investigation and to alleged American communists. The film is about how Cohn became Donald Trump's lawyer and mentor. I hope you can join us. Thank you. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producers are Molly C.B. Nesper and Sabrina Siewert. Roberta Shurock directs the show.

With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Moseley. about our democracy and going back in time to answer them. Listen now to the ThruLine podcast from NPR. Studies have shown that elections can spike feelings of stress and anxiety. That's why NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is there to help you feel more grounded as we talk about the buzziest TV movies and music. Try a show on HBO's Industry or a roundtable on Rom-Coms to take a step back from the news of the day, at least before you plunge back in tomorrow. New episodes every week on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

Do you feel like there's more on your to-do list than you can accomplish? Or maybe the world's problems feel extra heavy these days. We can't eliminate stress, but we can manage it. It's almost like I have a new operating system now. Extra heavy these days. We can't eliminate stress, but we can manage it. It's almost like I have a new operating system now. Like I tend to live more in this light. Stress Less, a quest to reclaim your calm. A new series from NPR's Life Kit podcast.