These days it seems that creators of popular culture are either talked about and marketed like no other or relatively under the radar. Generally, humility seems to be lacking in the industry.
Enter Pharrell Williams.
Besides the crazy hat that he sported at the Academy Awards (which Arby’s bought for $44,100), there hasn’t been too much talk about Pharrell in the recent past given all that he’s been doing.
From composing soundtracks for “Despicable Me” and “Despicable Me 2” to being featured on Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”, the past year seems as though it’s been busy for Pharrell.
The thing is, these are just small parts of a large name the man’s made for himself.
It was in the late ‘90s when Pharrell first appeared in the music industry working with Chad Hugo.
The two went on to create The Neptunes, a production duo that’s given us some of our favorite pop and hip-hop songs.
The term “producer” may sound like a sort of a cop-out title nowadays, and rightfully so; if you have a Macbook and GarageBand (or pirated software, let’s be real), you can essentially become a producer yourself.
This is not the case for Pharrell.
The laundry list of musicians he’s worked with goes on and on, and features names like Gloria Estefan, Usher, Jay Z and Kendrick Lamar to name a few.
The list of individual songs he’s either produced or been featured on is staggering as well, and is enough to create a portfolio big enough to support him in any musical direction he may go.
So with a repertoire like this, how has he managed to get such little attention while having such a large body of work?
Along with producing, Pharrell has his own solo career as well as a brief career with the group N.E.R.D., though their fame was not as long lasting.
At 40 years old, it seems as though he’s built up a pretty good pool of success (or stumbled upon the fountain of youth), and seems to have no signs of stopping anytime soon.
