- You did Rock The Bells?
- Mm hmm.
- When Rock The Bells came out,
I was like, what the fuck is this?
You guys don't understand what
you were doing to us in Virginia.
[upbeat hip hop beats]
- [Rick] Let's take couple of breaths.
- [Pharrell] Okay.
[Rick exhales loudly]
- Thankful to be here.
All good.
- Very.
[mellow hip hop beats]
- [Rick] So whatchu been
listening to lately,
anything exciting?
- I feel like there's a
couple songs here and there.
But for the most part, you know,
I just like to be intrigued.
- [Rick] So tell me what
intrigued looks like for you.
- Intrigued for me is,
first of all this moment is intriguing,
doing this with you right now.
That's intriguing.
But for me, musically,
I feel like I'm not,
I'm not one of those guys that are like,
oh, this is a nine, eight time
signature, this is amazing.
That just feels like math to me.
I think I get blown away
by chord progressions
that make me feel something
that I've never felt before.
Like to me, chords are coordinates.
- Wow.
- You know what I mean?
- [Rick] Yeah.
- They send you to a place.
- [Rick] Beautiful.
- And uh,
when I'm lucky enough to
be in the right elevator,
[laughs]
you know, I'm looking up and
I'm doing three things at once.
I'm going, what is that?
- Mm hmm.
- Number two, I'm trying
to remember the feeling
because when I go to
chase it later, that is,
I'm gonna have to reverse
engineer the feeling in order
to get to the chord structure.
- [Rick] Mm hmm.
- And third, to just back it
up by trying to Shazaam it
right then and there.
- How great is Shazaam?
- Shazaam is a gift.
- Yeah, game changer.
- Game changer.
- Yeah.
So if you find one,
what do you do with it?
Let's say you hear
something in that moment,
you have that experience,
you've Shazaam-ed it,
next what happens?
- I just wanna listen to it
over, and over, and over again,
and really understand what I'm feeling--
- Mm.
- And why I feel that way.
- Mm.
- 'Cause there's a hold
like university of science
between what's been played
and what you're hearing.
- Yes.
So you're analyzing yourself
as much as the music?
- Yeah,
'cause if you don't,
then you don't really,
you're not really getting
the proper assessment
of what's happening.
You know?
If I'm hearing something, what
I'm not paying attention to,
how I'm feeling, then for
me, I don't know what I'm,
that's my way of, that's
my GPS of understanding,
that's how I process
things, that's how I feel.
- [Rick] Mm hmm.
- That everything's cataloged
by and categorized by
the feeling of it.
If I can't see how I feel about it,
then I don't even know what
it is, it's just music.
- So, you don't have to
give me a specific example
but what would be the kind
of things that you'll be on
the elevator that would
stop you in your tracks?
You don't have to be specific
but how would you describe
what you're hearing?
- I'll take it outside of music terms.
It's kind of like being at
a table with several people,
you're in a conversation with
someone and all of a sudden,
you realize you've drifted
off in thought and this person
is still talking.
You hear their voice but
you now no longer know
what they're saying--
- Yes.
- Because you're not connected
to, you're not plugged in--
- Yes.
- To the conversation--
- Yes.
- So now, it's just a bunch of vocal tone.
- [Rick] Yeah.
- That's what it's like.
If I'm not, if my feeling is
not connected to the song,
then I don't really know
what I'm listening to.
Couldn't really tell you what it was.
- When you're working on
music with other artists,
are you always working
on it with them in mind
or are you working on your
favorite music and then,
depending on who you're
collaborating with,
it applies to, it may or
may not apply to them?
- I'm always channeling other people.
Usually the person that I'm working with,
I'm sort of channeling them.
Other times, I think that
they should be channeling
someone else so I'll do that for them--
- Mm hmm.
- And they may not suspect
it will sound good on them.
60% of the time, they don't do it.
40% of the time, people
just trust and try it.
- [Rick] Mm hmm.
- And within that 60% of the
time, it goes to someone else
who absolutely gets it.
- Mm hmm.
- That's how the universe works.
- [Rick] Yeah.
- Like there all these triggers
and not all of the ending
results will be what you
think it's supposed to be,
it's what was written.
- Yes.
If you're,
it speaks a little bit up
to something you just said,
if you're working with an
artist and you have a difference
of opinion with the artist over
something you're working on,
what would normally happen?
- Often times I take off my
ego hat when I'm in the studio
so a lot of times, there's
this thing that happens
where it's like, people
respect for the most part,
like some of the times,
most people assume people
respect others that they idolize.
But I found that people,
while they do sometimes but
I found that people really
respect the person that they
kind of feel like is the alpha in the,
in their rapport, in
this new found rapport.
But most producers, they kind
of like, no, I'm the alpha,
like you know, you know
how many records I've sold.
- Yeah, yeah.
- When truth be told,
we've not sold anything,
we've only made music and
people chose to stream it,
and share it, and buy it, whatever.
We're not responsible
for it, our success--
- Agreed.
- Millions of people who are responsible.
- [Rick] Absolutely.
- Yeah.
But when you do that, often
times you run the risk of them
just all of a sudden, just being like,
man I went from like trembling in my boots
talking to my parents about
being so excited to be
in the room with this guy
to like, he, you know,
I run the show
and so when we get to that
place that you're talking about
when there's a subtle disagreement,
this is when I have to, I don't,
I still leave my ego hat
like hung up at the door
but that's when I say,
maybe you should try this
or you know what, if you do that,
it's probably gonna be
what you've been doing
and my job is to,
nudge you, to poke and prod,
and pull you in places
that you would not go,
so that you can get a different result,
because if you do the same things,
you're just gonna make another
one of those really well.
- [Rick] Mm hmm.
- You know what I'm saying?
And that's when they have to trust you,
and that's the same kind of
very subtle trust of when
someone says, oh you snore in your sleep
but you're one of those
people that doesn't snore
and wake yourself up, you
just snore at a certain hour
or whatever, you just don't know.
- [Rick] Yes.
- You know?
It's one of those subtle things
that you just gotta trust
that someone sees something
that you can't see.
- [Rick] Yes.
- Another example of what
those subtleties is like,
you hear yourself talk all
day and then you hear yourself
on a voicemail and you
sound completely different
and you hate what you hear, right?
But everybody else hears the same thing.
- [Rick] Yes.
- But you hate that.
- Yes.
- Well the difference is,
is because we're listening
through the cavity of our head
but they're, again, these
people who don't notice
those subtle differences,
they rule that out.
So, if they can trust you enough--
- [Rick] Yes.
- To know that you can
see, hear or feel something
that is way too close for them to discern,
then you guys have the
ingredients for like,
something new to come.
- Yes.
How often would you say that happens?
Is it typical on most
projects, or once in a while,
or once in a blue moon?
- Every time I go in with
Kendrick, he transforms.
But he gets that.
He knows he's his next man.
He's super clear about that.
Ariana trust it.
Jay Z gets it.
He's always gotten it.
I mean, he's, people don't
realize he's been making records
since the 80's, that's unheard of.
- What's the first
record you made with him?
- We got a lot of records together,
I think it was Give It To Me.
I think that was the first one.
- Let's say you were going
to the studio tomorrow
with a new artist you've
never worked with before.
What would a typical first day be like?
Or is there a typical first day?
- It's what they come in talking about,
it's what they happen to
be actually going through,
so what they're talking about
at that particular moment,
it's what they happen to be going through
and it's a new way that
I can use their voice.
Like a juxtaposition to
what they usually do.
Like we were comparing
their voices to textures
if they had a like, satin voice,
what would it sound like against granite,
versus,
you know, cotton?
You know?
If they have like, a
crazy like diamond voice,
what does it sound like,
you know, dropped in jello?
Like how do I mix the sensory,
how do I mix the sensories together?
- Usually when you start a project,
do you come in with any ideas
or thoughts before it starts
or do you start with a blank slate?
- A lot of times I'll come in
with like two or three ideas.
- And might those be
conceptual ideas or tracks?
- Tracks.
- [Rick] Do you make tracks often?
- Yeah.
- [Rick] And do you make
tracks regardless of thinking
about where they're gonna go?
- Sometimes I think about
where they were gonna go
to get them out, to like--
- [Rick] Just to make 'em.
- Yeah, I have to channel.
- [Rick] Yeah.
- I channel all the time.
I'm always pretending I'm
someone else in order to get it
to come out 'cause I just feel like,
I'm the best version of
myself is, as a producer,
is I'm like a mirror for people.
I try to show them sides of themselves
that they don't ever use.
It's like when people take selfies,
they only take like,
they only use like one side all the time.
So I'm the guy that's like,
hey, you know, God made another side like,
it's very interesting, you should try it.
- Let's come up with a
hypothetical example,
name an artist you liked from childhood.
Someone you listen to as a kid.
Tell me someone.
- Stevie Wonder.
- Okay, so if you were
producing a Stevie Wonder album,
what would be your first instincts in
making a Stevie Wonder
project that you would want
to listen to, what would it be?
- That's kind of difficult
because he's done
so many different genres.
I mean, his reggae was amazing,
his disco was amazing,
his ballads were unbelievable,
his Parisien Burt Bacharach, you know,
Bossa Nova stuff was amazing.
So maybe use, let's use someone else.
- Okay.
- I guess I only like eclectic people.
'Cause I was gonna say Earth Wind and Fire
but like, they did a lot of stuff too.
- Absolutely.
I like a couple of non-eclectic groups.
I like the Ramones and I wouldn't
want them to be different.
[laughs]
- Yeah.
They were really good at their thing.
- Yeah, yeah.
But more often than not,
I like watching the evolution and growth.
- Maybe Prince.
- That's a good one.
So what would the Pharrell
produced Prince project,
what will be different about it?
- Maybe it'll be interesting to
hear him do like, Afro-Cuban.
- It'll be incredible.
- It'll be something else, yeah.
- Great idea.
Beyond Stevie and Prince,
who would've been the music
you listen to growing up?
- Earth Wind and Fire.
James Brown.
- Did you grow up in a musical household?
- They played a lot of music all the time.
- Brothers and sisters?
- Yes.
Music was just like in our environment.
It was just like in the environment
and like going to church all
the time, you know, like,
between getting in the car
and listening to the music
in the car, listening to music at home
and at church,
it was always something.
- You grew up in Virginia?
- [Pharrell] Yes sir.
- And what was the music
you listened to in the car?
What was the station?
- On the FM side, it was K 94.
On the AM side it was AM 850.
And everything from
Rick James,
Give It To Me
to Thriller,
to Another One Bites the Dust,
to..
Chuck Brown's Bustin' Loose.
I mean, it was a wide range.
It just--
- Did Go-go make it to Virginia?
- [Pharrell] Oh my goodness.
- Really?
- Go-go was second sound of Virginia.
- Wow.
- [Pharrell] It was everything.
- Wow.
- [Pharrell] Everything.
- Did you ever go to the Go-go?
- Nothing like it.
- [Rick] Nothing like it?
- That's a world.
- [Rick] Yeah.
- And it's so interesting to
me because it's such a pocket
that if you go outside of
D.C., north-wise to New York,
you wouldn't know anything about it.
- [Rick] No.
- If you go, but when you go down south,
you could find some of it in Delaware,
you could find a little bit
of it in Maryland but not much
and Virginia was just big
and the Carolinas it was big.
It was a world.
It's a world.
- When I first heard it,
it completely blew my mind.
Completely, it felt like it was the next,
like, after hip hop, the
next wave it felt like that.
- Yeah.
- [Rick] It felt like that.
- Well, you guys produced a
lot of records with that sound.
- Yeah, yeah.
- [Pharrell] Right?
- Yeah.
- You did Rock The Bells?
- Mm hmm.
Haven't heard it in a while but,
hope it holds up.
[chuckles]
- That's crazy, bro.
I was, I'll never forget
where I was when I heard
Rock The Bells for the first time.
We were over at my cousin's house
out in Norfolk and,
I got a cousin named Fifi
and my mom and dad used
to go over to their house
over the weekends,
we would just go over there to play cards,
well, they would go
over thereto play cards,
I didn't know how to, they
would play like spades and,
but when Rock The Bells
came out, I was like,
what the fuck is this?
'Cause we loved Go-go--
- Yeah.
- So it was kind of like,
these New York guys with
this like Go-go sound.
And then like, L was like the coolest,
he had the crazy chains.
You guys don't understand
what you were doing
to us in Virginia.
It was a whole thing,
it was like you know,
do you know how bad I
wanted a troop jacket?
[Rick laughs]
Like how bad I wanted a troop
jacket, I wanted those chains.
The music just literally transformed.
It was doing things to our
minds, shifting our perspectives,
making us dance,
making us run to the television
to watch Yo! MTV Raps for
a glimpse of anything--
- [Rick] Yeah.
- Any kind of slang.
- [Rick] Yeah.
- We savored it.
- [Rick] Yeah.
- Because those records were so good.
- Wow.
People don't remember how
hard it was to haar rap music.
- No.
- It was the underground
of the underground.
- Yes.
[laughs]
- It was a tiny subculture.
- Really tiny but he's super huge.
- Yes, but also tiny.
- Yeah, they did a lot
to try to suppress it
but the white kids loved it too much.
[laughs]
And there was no, hate to make it racial
but that's what changed it, right?
We've been professed our love for it.
You guys been making it.
But you just couldn't, you know,
they couldn't suppress
that, it just was too big,
it was just too strong.
It was too beautiful and it
was igniting people in a way.
- Why do you think they
wanted to suppress it?
- They didn't understand
it, in my opinion.
They didn't understand it,
they didn't understand
where it was coming from.
If you don't understand
where it's coming from,
you really don't understand
why it's necessary to support it.
And then like some, a group
of people realized it was
a lot of money in it and then
things changed obviously.
- I think it changed for
the worse personally.
My experience was when people
started getting involved
once they saw they
could make money in it--
- [Pharrell] Yeah.
- [Rick] It changed the
culture a little bit.
- Sure.
- 'Cause early on, anyone who
was doing it clearly loved it
because there was no upside
so if you were doing it,
you had to love it.
- Yeah, you just did it
'cause it felt amazing.
- That's it.
What's your first memory of any hip hop?
- Kraftwerks.
- Wow, interesting.
I wouldn't have given that answer,
even though, probably same,
but I wouldn't have thought that.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, yeah.
- We were hearing those
records and we were like,
what is this?
- Yeah.
- Another record that was very
transformative in Virginia
was Strafe, Set It Off.
- Yeah, incredible.
One of the greats.
Anytime you're at a club and that came on,
people just lost their mind.
One of the greats.
And there's not much to
it, if you think back.
- It's amazing.
Every sound.
- Yeah.
- Every sound in that song.
- Yeah.
- Set It Off was a hit
for like eight more years.
- Yeah, for sure.
For sure, you can go out to a club today
and still hear it and it
would play like it played
the day it came out.
- Starts with one snare.
- Yeah.
- As a kid, there was
nothing like coming outside,
somebody pulling up like, you
know their car or whatever,
you come outside and one of
the drug dealers is like,
they have this system like, just knocking
and they're playing Set It Off
and they're all just sitting
around like, smoking a joint,
and you're just like wow.
These guys are titans.
I mean that's how we looked at them,
they were like larger than life.
- [Rick] Yeah.
- I mean, every time you
came outside, you know,
the gold chains, whatever, whatever,
and the music's playing,
those were videos.
At least that's how I was looking at it.
We would just go outside and be like, wow.
We're losers.
[Rick laughing]
Well, what are we gonna do today?
Let's go lose.
Just walk outside and you just see like,
the baddest chicks, you
know, the hoop earrings,
the bicycle shorts, you know,
with the incredible figures,
talking to the drug dealers and
those guys are all just like
you know, chains out, passing joints
and Set It Off is
playing and it's a movie.
Another record to me that
had like a eight year run,
White Lines.
- Yeah.
- How do you just like,
how did it just like nail,
each one of Planet Rock--
- [Rick] Mm hmm.
- Numbers, Set It Off and White Lines,
and The Message.
- [Rick] Mm hmm.
- Each one of those records.
So my question is like, how,
like what was those guys feeling?
What was Grandmaster Flash
and Melle Mel feeling
when they made The Message?
- I might argue, Scorpio,
for that matter, is up there.
- Scorpio.
- Yeah.
When I was DJing, I would
always play Scorpio.
- Did you do that record too, with L?
- Uh, I don't know.
- The, Jingling Baby?
- No, that's after me.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
- 'Cause that's what they sampled.
- Or is it?
- Yeah.
- I had no idea.
- Yeah, that was a record.
- Yeah, yeah.
♪ Bam, bam, bam, bam,
bam, bam, bam, bam, bam ♪
- [Rick] So cool.
- That's like..
Music was a different
kind of eclectic then.
- Any theories why?
- Technology where it was, where it was.
Instrumentation was still very
much so, very big part of it.
- Mm hmm.
- There's a lot of
predictive default modes
in the way that people program now.
- Mm hmm.
- Like so you don't have
to play as much as you can,
you know, it's perfect for someone who
is a great player or someone
who's not the best player
but has ideas, has really strong ideas.
- [Rick] Mm hmm.
- So, that takes a lot
of the experimentation
that the machine can predict and get to
but there's a different thing that man has
that the machines don't.
It's an intuitiveness.
- [Rick] Yes.
- And intuition and prediction
are two different things,
and so the machine can give
you a bunch of predictive
equations for examples
of changes you might like
or things you might want
to do and make some really,
very interesting suggestions
but it's predictive
and it's pretty much
based on not even random
but different variations,
whereas intuition is like,
no, go completely left.
- Mm hmm.
How much do you rely on technology,
like, are you attached
to certain instruments
or certain technology?
- I think I'm pretty much
porous at this point,
I'm just open, you know?
I like the way I work at the moment
but I'm like open to new methods.
- When you first started making music,
you went from seeming like a hip hop fan,
into, what's the first
thing you ever made?
Regardless whether you put it out or not,
what was your first experiments
in making your own music?
- We, Chad and I,
and I haven't mentioned Chad yet but,
'cause I think you asked
me a lot of questions
in reference to my own
personal process but,
for a very big part of my career,
Chad and I worked together
and I think, what we tried to do,
and we still work together--
- [Rick] Yeah.
- But I think for the most
part, what we always try to do
was reverse engineer the
songs that did something to us
emotionally and figure out
where the mechanism is in there,
and as I said to you before,
try to figure out if we can
build a building that
doesn't look the same
but makes you feel the same way.
- Yeah.
- I did that in Blurred Lines
and got myself in trouble.
- Yeah.
[Pharrell chuckles]
Ridiculously.
- Stevie Wonder told me,
he said, you gotta get
the right musicologist in there
because juries don't understand.
It's very technical what you've done.
- Yeah.
- [Pharrell] And--
- The song is nothing like the song.
- Nope, but the feeling was.
- Yeah but the feeling is not something
that you can copyright.
- No, you can't copyright a feeling.
All salsa songs sound
pretty much the same.
- Yes and reggae songs or any genre--
- 100%.
- Trap music sounds relatively similar.
- Yeah but here's the difference.
- [Rick] Yeah.
- What we failed,
and it hurt my feelings 'cause
I would never take anything
from anyone--
- [Rick] Of course.
- And that really set me back.
I made Missy Elliott's Where They From,
in the middle of that trial
when I was really hurt because
when I realized all too late
is what he was trying to
tell me is I needed to
use my gift to make music,
to..
reverse engineer the
disparity between the truth
and people's, and the jury's
uneducated opinions,
and I say that because
rayon and silk feel the same
but we understand that
there's a clear difference.
- Yeah.
- [Pharrell] And that was what happened.
- Yeah.
- Like I really made
it feel so much like it
that people were like,
oh, I hear the same thing.
- Yeah.
- And it's like, nah, look at the notes.
- Yeah, if you--
- Well if you don't know, then
you know, when you get like,
an ambulance chaser,
which is who they got,
this guy never won like..
Let me not speak negativity about them.
This was my lesson.
- Yeah.
- I didn't take Stevie's
advice to the fullest extent.
I did, I thought I was but
I really underestimated
people are not getting that.
- Yeah.
The issue is, it's bad for music
because we've had an
understanding of what a song is
and now, based on that one case,
now there's a question what a song is.
- Yeah.
- It's not what it used to be
because in the past, it would
be the chords, the melody
and the words would be the song.
- Mm hmm.
- And your chords, your
melody and your words,
none of them had anything to do--
- [Pharrell] Nope.
- So--
- It was just a feeling.
I'd often--
- It leaves you in a,
it leaves us as music makers,
in a really uncomfortable
place making things
because now we don't know what you can do.
- I failed you.
[Rick chuckles]
- I did.
I left it up to what I thought
would be, what was right--
- Yeah.
- But I was wrong because
I didn't go the extra mile
to get people to understand.
You can copyright that which is tangible,
not the intangible.
- Yes.
- And that's what they proved,
because I had ability to make
something feel very similar--
- Yes.
- They said, you know what, this is wrong,
if it feels like it, that's what it is.
Well, you can't copyright a
feeling 'cause if that's the
case, there would be a lot
of marijuana cases right now.
Right?
- [Rick] Yeah.
- Well, this weed makes me feel this way--
- Yes.
- And this weed makes me feel this way.
It's the same.
Copyrighting feeling--
- Yeah.
- Right, so--
- Yeah.
- That means that like,
if you made chocolate
and somebody else makes
chocolate and both of them
makes one feel a certain kind
of way, they can now sue you.
- It'll be an interesting
documentary for you to make,
just about this.
Just explain to people how it works,
what you did,
what the rules historically have been--
- Mm hmm.
- And..
What impact
this decision has on
the history of music--
- Mm hmm.
- Because I mean,
everything is rooted in
something, everything.
- Yeah.
That one hurt me, that one set me back.
That one like, that hurt.
- Everyone was shocked by it.
- Of course.
- Anyone who know, who
understands the situation
would be shocked by it because
what you did was completely,
what has been done since
the beginning of people making music.
- Yeah.
I mean, can you imagine all the people
who made motown-esque music?
- Everyone.
- You know?
- [Rick] Yes.
- Everybody that makes merengue?
- Yes.
- Everybody that makes jazz?
- Yeah.
Oh that's swinging, hey.
- I wonder if, this is interesting,
I never really made this
connection before but,
I wonder if this in any way plays into
the new way our culture is
looking back on material.
I was a dinner the other night
and someone mentioned that
Richard Pryor wouldn't be
able to put out the material
that he put out today--
- Mm hmm.
- And Richard Pryor was
one of the all-time greats.
- Mm hmm.
- And..
I wonder if there's this like,
if the line of what's possible,
instead of it being this
ever expanding growth
of making more beautiful,
interesting things,
the powers that be,
maybe very much like in the
beginning days of hip hop,
are trying to constrict that opening
of what's possible to share.
- I mean, there's a, yeah.
I think there's always that anyways.
I mean, that's the country we live in,
that's the world we live in.
There's always a bunch of older folks
who are in positions of power
who don't think as progressively
as the younger generation
and seek to hold things
and keep try to keep things as yesterday
when we already know it's
already for tomorrow.
I mean, I don't think that
he could do that kind of,
I don't think he could do it now.
I don't think Richard could do it now.
I think he's amazing.
To me, he's the GOAT.
He's the greatest of all time to me.
- [Rick] Yeah.
- [Pharrell] Of all time.
- Yeah.
- But I don't think you could because..
The poles have shifted already
and when the poles shift,
everything in the matrix
is just a new, it's a new
color, it's a new taste,
it's the new smells, the new feeling
and the rules change.
If you go back and look
at half the commercials
that were out in the 70's
like they are incredibly
disrespectful to women.
Like incredibly and so he made,
his jokes were created at a
time when the zeitgeist was
progressive for that time--
- Mm hmm.
- But then when you
look over your shoulder,
you realize that even in, you know,
the need to progress was still
so much super wrong shit.
I mean, like LGBTQIA,
they were like really
not even allowed to exist
with the exception of being mocked
as men cross dressing for a joke--
- Yeah.
- Or a cross dressing for a show.
Other than that, that just didn't happen.
And they, you know, it was
okay to call them names
and be incredibly disrespectful
to people's feelings.
That would never fly.
But he, I mean, if you
really know his life story
like I mean, he didn't have
anything against anyone.
- No, of course--
- And maybe he could
have for that reason--
- Yeah.
- But the language that he used was
because it was pushing it for that time.
- Yes.
It was of the moment, you can't,
you can't take art out of the
context in which it was made.
- Yeah,
and art is expression and the art of art,
you know, the power of art,
what gives art its pertinence
is when people are pushing it.
- [Rick] Yeah.
- He would be pushing it in
a completely different way
were it right now.
- But the world was a different place
so he would be pushing
it maybe in the same way
but it would feel completely
different in today's world
because the world's different
so the context would change everything.
- Yes.
- But he would, it would
be the same velocity--
- [Pharrell] Yes.
- Of power.
- The same degree.
- Probably just different jokes.
- 100%.
- Yeah.
Since the Blurred Lines
issue, it's interesting,
I wasn't even gonna bring it
up, but since you brought--
- Well, 'cause we were
talking about feeling
and I know that's what
the universe has given me,
one of the things its given
me is like the ability to
make things, is to
reverse engineer a feeling
and make a tangible item.
- So since what happened, happened,
has it changed anything
about the way you work?
- No.
- Good.
- It's the only way I know how to make.
- Great.
- [Pharrell] Yeah.
- That's great news.
- Yeah.
I just know I need to be incredibly,
when something feels super,
no matter if the chords are
absolutely, like they're jazz chords--
- Yeah.
- And what I am seeking to
match the feeling in is like,
80's power band chords,
I still would reach out,
hey, you guys, just want to be clear,
this feels the same to me.
- Yeah.
- [Pharrell] But it's not.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Here's this, here's this,
here's this, here's this.
How do you feel about this?
You know, just, having
those kinds of conversations
if there's someone that's
just like, completely
outlandish about something,
I'm like, all right,
I'm cool on you, like,
whatever, which never happens.
This was just like a freak situation--
- [Rick] Absolutely.
- That was meant to humble me.
To teach me a lesson.
- [Rick] Yeah.
- And I think that lesson was..
Just be very clear in
what my intentions are
and to just not assume that
everybody understands the
difference between rayon and silk.
- Yeah.
- I made rayon, he made silk.
- Yes.
Sometimes you want rayon.
- [Pharrell] Yeah.
- Depends on the use.
- Yeah.
- There's a reason rayon exists.
- 100%.
- What's the most fun or exciting moment
for you in the process?
- When you make something
and you're like..
Yeah, I gotta play this again.
- Yeah.
- You know?
- [Rick] Yeah.
- Only a couple times in my career
I made something like that.
Where me and my wife, we
just play it over, and over,
and over, we go on a
ride and we'll look up
and we've been driving
for like 45 minutes--
- [Rick] Wow.
- To an hour.
Couple of times.
- It's a great feeling.
- Oh my goodness.
- Yeah.
I love the moment when
we're working in the studio
patiently, you know, waiting
for something to happen--
- Yeah.
- And something goes
from not so interesting
to really interesting
and not much changed--
- [Pharrell] Yeah.
- And it's like, what happened?
- Yeah.
- What just happened?
And it's a little scary,
that feeling of like--
- [Pharrell] Didn't do much.
- Like nobody move.
- [Pharrell] Yeah.
- It's very exciting and it's so,
it's so out of our control, you know?
You can't make that happen.
- No.
- It's just patience.
- No.
I don't think we make,
we don't make much happen
when it comes to creativity.
We're just antennas and transistors.
- [Rick] Yes.
- We're speakers.
You know?
We're just lucky to get the transmission.
- Yeah.
When did your interest in fashion begin?
- Oh, ever since I
realized I didn't have it.
[Rick laughs]
When I was young and my
other friends would come to
class with like Jordans
and all these other things.
I would always say, man, if I get those,
and I would like, see
those gray, you know?
And so..
When given an opportunity,
I just started like,
doing it, just 'cause
I was so appreciative
to be able to do it.
- Do you see it as the
same as making music?
- Making?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
- Same, it's the same--
- [Pharrell] You're
using the same muscles.
- Same process.
- Yeah, definitely using the same muscles.
- Anything else you'd be
interesting in applying
those muscles to that you haven't yet?
- Well, first of all,
the one thing that's definitely
on my mind before I leave
is that we have to do something together.
You don't need me.
[Rick laughs]
I definitely need you.
I'm not sure for what yet.
I don't know what you're working on but,
I mean..
I'm so down.
You're like--
- We'll find something
important to do together.
- I would be so honored.
- You talked about you and
Chad starting together,
making music.
How would you say the process
of making music has changed
from before doing anything,
starting as a kid,
being a fan making music, til now.
What's changed?
- I guess being a family man.
You know?
More of a family man than I ever was.
I always said that I was
gonna have like four kids.
I didn't know I was really
gonna have four kids.
- Wow.
- I always said it.
- Yeah.
- And we went from one to four.
- Incredible.
- That's the only difference.
I love music.
Music is like, music is
the key that's opened,
it's the skeleton key that's
opened every door for me.
Including this one right here.
Who knew on the other
side of chord structures
that would make me emotional as a child
would lead to this moment right here.
Like going the other side
of listening to, you know,
Q-Tip sampling Roy Ayers
music production's Daylight,
to making Bonita Applebum
on the other side
of my infatuation with that song
and listening to it over,
and over again, on repeat,
on the other side of
that, of those chords,
was the distance to this moment.
Nothing's changed.
- [Rick] All built on music.
- 100%.
- The mountain of song.
- [Pharrell] It's crazy.
- Yeah, we were very lucky
that we get to play in this world so much.
- Yeah, I mean,
I want this for everybody.
I want everybody to
wake up everyday going,
how did this happen?
I love doing this.
I feel like I get paid for free.
So I'm doing what I love to do.
I want that for everybody.
This is, this place is amazing.
This interview was, you know, awesome.
I'm just so grateful, so
grateful for this opportunity
to be able to sit with you and,
to me, that's how awesome the universe is.
You know what I'm saying?
- Absolutely, we are blessed.
- Like I got a chance
to sit and talk to you.
The universe works it out that way.
If you're doing one thing, okay,
and you're also gonna sit down
and have this conversation
with Rick Rubin.
- Thank you for making
the long journey out here.
[airplane roaring]
They're trying to silence
the voices of hip hop.
[laughs]
- They're at it again.
[mellow hip hop music]
- See you soon.
- Thank you so much.
- I love you.
- Thank you, thank you.
- See you soon.
- Yes sir.
