Month: January 2014

Nick Huff Barili of Hard Knock TV, in collaboration with GRAMMY.com, sits down with Producer of the Year Pharrell Williams for in-depth interview. In part 1, Pharrell recalls how Sugarhill Gang, Afrika Bambaataa’s Planet Rock and Nile Rodgers all played into his early music memories. Pharrell explains how he’s always felt a “little left of center”. He adds that “I think music helped me and other people make sense of it. You are only crazy when there is nothing to go along with it…When you have these eccentric characteristics, its more accepted and understood when there is some sort of skill-set attached to it…For example Jay Z mumbles when he writes his songs, he mumbles for 10-15 minutes, then he comes back with like 16 bars of one of the most comprehensive verses you have heard in a long time. He does it every time. But again, there is some sort of skill-set to accompany his madness…Music was my inner sanctum, that’s where I found my peace.” As the interview continues Nick ask’s Pharrell about his creative process when he goes in the studio with an artist and what his thought process was going into the making of Blurred Lines. You don’t want to miss what he has to say about that plus how he thinks artists like Lorde, Kendrick Lamar and Ed Sheeran are changing the game by making meaningful music and letting the people speak for them instead of record labels executives.