PHARRELL Archives - Page 4 of 25

Lupe Fiasco Wants To Reboot CRS Supergroup Without Original Members

July 18, 2024 by newhiphopnews

Child Rebel Soldier is a lost relic of the 2000s. The name was applied to a supergroup that only worked on two songs. The thing is, the members of the supergroup were so famous that fans continue to ponder what a full album could have sounded like. Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West and Pharrell was a dream lineup for any hip-hop fan, but their different career paths made the prospective album an impossibility. Lupe Fiasco wants to reboot CRS for modern times, but his vision may not be what fans had in mind.

In short, Lupe Fiasco wants to transform the supergroup into a solo venture. He recently talked about Child Rebel Soldier during an interview with Stereogum, and delved into the brand’s potential. He even provided a time table on when fans can expect new CRS music. “I’m gonna reboot CRS in the next six months, maybe next year,” Fiasco stated. “Tyler, [The Creator] has one of the CRS records. But it’s gonna go back to the original energy, which was me rapping over Radiohead beats.” The concept of “original energy” was enlightening for readers, as the rapper detailed how CRS first started.

Lupe Fiasco Wants To Rap Exclusively Over Radiohead Samples

Evidently, Lupe Fiasco wanted to rap about the dark side of fame, and Kanye West and Pharrell were so intrigued by the concept they offered the Chicago rapper beats. It snowballed into songs in which all 3 artists rhymed. “Us (Placers)” and “Everybody Noze (Remix)” are the only official CRS releases in which this happened. Fiasco has had a bit of a renaissance in recent years, however, so dusting off one of his biggest “what if” projects makes sense. The rapper’s love for Radiohead is what initially sparked his desire to rhyme about darker subject matter. He conceded, though, that a full-fledged collab with the British band would be difficult.

Instead, Lupe Fiasco wants to turn Child Rebel Soldier into a solo album driven by Radiohead samples. “I’ll just go back to that original [vibe],” he told the outlet. “Just go back and find those dope loops and samples from Radiohead or their solo records. Loop the sh*t up, and make little beats out of it, and crush with some dope ass lyrics.” Fiasco has done just that on fan favorite songs like “The National Anthem” and “Animal Pharm,” so there’s no reason to think he can’t do it now. That said, fans will never get a chance to hear what a three-man CRS album would have sounded like.

[via]

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Pharrell Taps Another Longtime Collaborator, Pusha T, As The Latest Louis Vuitton Ambassador

July 9, 2024 by newhiphopnews

Ever since being made the head menswear designer of Louis Vuitton, Pharrell Williams has made it a point to feature his famous friends and top collaborators in the company’s plans, both in front of the cameras and behind the scenes. His first Louis campaign prominently featured Rihanna, while both Clipse and Jay-Z appeared during his first Louis Vuitton fashion show. This year, he’s already collaborated on a collection with musical protégé, Tyler The Creator, and today, it was announced that Pusha T will be Louis Vuitton’s newest brand ambassador.

According to Women’s Wear Daily, a statement from the fashion house noted the two artists’ longstanding connection and praised Pusha’s “commitment to artistry” and “strong personal style.” It reads, “His ambassadorial nomination at Louis Vuitton is a testament to his commitment to artistry and a strong personal style, both echoing the maison’s own dedication to unique expression across fashion and culture.”

Clothing isn’t the only thing Push and Pharrell have been working on. Last month, Pusha told Vulture he and his brother (once again going by just Malice) have reunited as Clipse and have been recording a new album produced by Pharrell. The duo is also set to appear in Williams’ upcoming biopic, Piece By Piece which has been animated in the style of The Lego Movie.

Pusha T Named The Latest Brand Ambassador For Louis Vuitton

July 9, 2024 by newhiphopnews

Pusha T and fashion are synonymous. Don’t take our word for it. The Clipse rapper literally told Vogue that he considers fashion to be part of his DNA. He’s peppered in references to different brands in his raps, and he’s longtime friends with another fashion-forward icon, Pharrell. This bond proved to be beneficial yet again. Pharrell is the men’s creative director for Louis Vuitton. Pusha T, meanwhile, has become the brand’s latest global ambassador.

The collaboration was finalized on July 8. Louis Vuitton issued a glowing statement. “[Pusha T’s] ambassadorial nomination at Louis Vuitton is a testament to his commitment to artistry and a strong personal style,” the brand explained. “Both echoing the maison’s own dedication to unique expression across fashion and culture.” Louis Vuitton also praised the rapper’s ability to bring in different cultural influences to keep the brand relevant. “[His] role as house ambassador underscores Louis Vuitton’s vision of bringing together diverse cultural influences,” they added. “[And] build powerful storytelling within its storied menswear universe.”

Pusha T Previously Walked A Louis Vuitton Fashion Show

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A post shared by Louis Vuitton (@louisvuitton)

Pusha T has some experience with the Louis Vuitton brand. He walked the runway at the Spring/Summer Men’s 2025 fashion show in Paris. He was joined by his brother and fellow Clipse rapper, No Malice. The duo even premiered a song at the event, “Birds Don’t Sing.” While the intermingling of fashion and rap makes seem unique, given Pusha’s main occupation, the rapper has made it clear that he sees the two as one in the same. He told Vogue that he fashion informs the hip-hop experience, the same exact way that hip-hop culture informs the latest fashion trends.

“I’ve never looked at hip hop as just rapping,” Pusha T explained. “It’s also about knowing what the fresh kicks were [and are], coming outside with the fresh fits. It always kept everyone very competitive, and I always looked at this as part of hip hop’s entirety. I’ve never separated fashion from the music.” Pusha’s mission statement is evident in his first Louis Vuitton ad campaign. The rapper is photographed wearing various Louis V items, including chains and a tracksuit. It’ll be exciting to see what Pusha T and Pharrell come up with.

[via]

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Pusha T Teases Features On New Clipse Album After Listening Party

June 20, 2024 by newhiphopnews

Clipse are back. The Virginia duo haven’t dropped since 2009, but they have confirmed their plans to reunite with producer Pharrell Williams on their fourth studio album. Considering how good their stuff is when Pharrell is behind the boards, fans are in for a classic. The promo for the album definitely makes it seem that way. Clipse and Pharrell hosted a listening party for new album in Paris on June 20. Feedback was glowing, but it was Pusha T’s comments afterwards that got fans more excited.

The listening party revealed crucial details about the album. The album is reportedly 90% done, and rappers who have been confirmed to appear on the tracklist include Nas, John Legend, and Stove God Cooks. The revelations, didn’t stop there, though. Pusha quoted a tweet about the listening party, and wrote: “Plus a couple more features…” with an upside down smiley face emoji. The notion of a stacked feature list on a Clipse album is novel, given the tracklist for their first two releases. The guest verses were mainly handled by Re-Up Gang. Til the Casket Drops, their third album, had more star power to offer, but it’s also considered Clipse’s weakest. It also featured the least Pharrell production.

Clipse Promise To Drop Their Most “Mature” Album Yet

All the pieces are in play for the new album to work. Pusha T and Nas have never officially been on the same song. Nas was supposed to be on Push’s 2022 album It’s Almost Dry, but it never came together. “Nas was gonna be on my last verse of ‘Hear Me Clearly,’” he told Spotify. “I don’t know, man. It pisses me off. It was my biggest regret for the album.” Stove God Cooks has never worked with Pusha T either, though it’s easy to see, lyrically and stylistically, how they would mesh. If anything, John Legend is the head-scratcher of an inclusion. Legend’s image seems to clash with Clipse’s, but if anybody can make their incongruous sounds work, it’s Pharrell.

Pusha T and No Malice are confident the new album will be their most mature yet. The latter said as much during a recent profile with Vulture. “I think the album shows the supreme maturation of a rap duo,” he posited. “I think this is where you get the difference between taste and filler. This music is curated. This is a high taste-level piece of work. You can only have that level of taste when you have the fundamentals down to a science.” No Malice concurs. “This is what the true evolution of the Clipse looks like,” he concluded.

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Clipse Clears Up Rumors That They Have Beef With Justin Timberlake

June 19, 2024 by newhiphopnews

Clipse and Justin Timberlake have been linked for over two decades. The rap duo and the pop star both scored breakout hits with the Neptunes, and owe a great deal of their success to Pharrell Williams. Clipse and JT even worked together on the 2002 single “Like I Love You.” Both parties have had issues over the years, with Clipse breaking up and Timberlake becoming something of a pop culture pariah. The latter is currently being roasted by the internet over his recent drunk driving arrest. Despite the anti-Timberlake sentiment that’s taken root, however, Clipse maintain that they have nothing against the pop star.

Clipse, comprised of brothers Pusha T and No Malice, are back in the news. They’ve announced their first new song since 2009. They’ve also confirmed that their upcoming album will be entirely produced by Pharrell. Clipse and Justin Timberlake used to be on the same record label in the 2000s, but things became complicated when Pharrell and JT stopped working together. Pusha T claimed that Clipse and Pharrell-affiliated artists were shelved by the aforementioned label, Jive. This resulted in a four year gap between Clipse’s first and second albums. Pusha made it very clear, however, that he does not hold JT responsible. The rapper told TMZ that their issues were with Jive and not Timberlake. It was an “overall label thing,” he was quoted as saying. “[Not] a Justin thing.”

Clipse Claim They Never Had Issues With JT

This isn’t the first time Clipse members have discussed their relationship with Timberlake. The duo was asked their feelings on the “Sexyback” singer during a recent Vulture profile, and their story remained the same. “We never had a problem with Justin,” Pusha assured the interviewer. The rapper then noted the ways in which Jive Records made it difficult for them to succeed. The solo star explained how Jive frequently complained about the perceived one-dimensionality of Clipse’s music. “We went through all the ‘cocaine rap’ complaints,” he recalled. You get tired of it. Then you realize the people who only look at it that way aren’t even listening to the music correctly. You can’t even take their opinion as anything.”

Pusha T loves to beef, so it’s easy to take the rapper at his word when he says he’s cool with Justin Timberlake. Pusha is probably best known for bombing on Drake with 2018’s “The Story of Adidon,” which regained relevance in the wake of the Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar battle. The rapper didn’t play a role in the battle, but he admitted that he was impressed by Lamar’s rapping. “Euphoria” stood out to him, in particular. “Incredible, incredible display,” he told Vulture. “Incredible display of battle raps.”

[via]

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Pusha T And No Malice Are Making A New Clipse Album That’s Entirely Produced By Pharrell

June 19, 2024 by newhiphopnews

Pharrell Williams Pusha T TV One Urban One Honors at The Eastern 2022 — Getty Image

The Neptunes (Pharrell and Chad Hugo) are a major part of the Clipse (Pusha T and No Malice) story: The production duo has been at the helm of all four Clipse albums, including their latest, 2009’s Til The Casket Drops. Now, Clipse is readying their first album in 15 years, and the whole thing is produced by Pharrell.

In a new Vulture interview, Pusha T said, “Pharrell producing everything is also an ode to the type of music and the type of albums we want to make. We still want to make full bodies of work. These are movies, man. These aren’t just songs. This isn’t just a collection of joints we went in and banged out.”

He also noted that he and No Malice didn’t work with Pharrell’s Neptunes partner Chad Hugo on the project.

Elsewhere, Pusha said about the album, “I think the album shows the supreme maturation of a rap duo. I think this is where you get the difference between taste and filler. This music is curated. This is a high taste-level piece of work. You can only have that level of taste when you have the fundamentals down to a science. I think it’s been definitely missing. Then there’s the competitive aspect.”

No Malice added, “This is smart basketball. It’s fundamentals. And not only that, it’s authenticity. It’s what rap should look like if you’re real about your craft, real about your experience, real about your storytelling. It’s bringing the fans along to see the growth, not trying to fit in or fabricate. It just seems like in other genres of music, they have the luxury of growing. For some reason, we act like we’re not supposed to evolve. This is what the true evolution of the Clipse looks like. It’s just good to be able to show that and still have high-level raps.”

Check out the full interview here.

Pharrell Seemingly Disses Drake On New Single “Double Life”

June 14, 2024 by newhiphopnews

Pharrell and Drake have always had a contentious relationship. Pharrell is best friends with Pusha T, the man who obliterated Drake’s public profile in 2018. The issues between Skateboard P and the 6 God was always unspoken, though. The two of them even collaborated on the remix to “Lemon” in 2017. Then the beef with Kendrick Lamar happened, and everything changed. K. Dot claimed to inherit the beef from P, and Drake taunted the Compton rapper by telling him to get Pharrell’s jewelry out of his house. It was all very messy. Many assumed Pharrell would keep quiet on the matter, but he might have just responded.

Pharrell dropped a new single on June 14 titled “Double Life.” The song is part of the Despicable Me 4 soundtrack, which is a franchise that helped the artist land the number one single “Happy.” It may sound wild, the notion of a rap diss being snuck into the soundtrack for a kid’s movie, but it seems like that is what P chose to do here. “Double Life” contains bars that appear to be specifically aimed at Drake and his, well, double life. “Lie detector time,” he raps. “Hey, what are you hiding?” Pharrell doubles down on this mysterious target with the lines: “Nothing wrong being private… Make sure it ain’t wrong.”

Pharrell Targets A Rapper Who’s “Hiding” Things

It’s worth noting that Pharrell is one of the most positive and optimistic voices in hip-hop. He’s always preaching kindness to fellow artists. He’s the guy who made “Happy,” like we said. The thing is, Drake has been sniping at him for a long time. The 6 God threw shots at Pharrell on the 2023 Travis Scott hit “Meltdown.” P is the only artist mentioned in “Family Matters” who didn’t directly diss Drake beforehand. It wouldn’t be absurd to assume Skateboard P decided to crack the seal on negativity for Drake’s sake. Most of the hip-hop did it in 2024 (and it’s June).

Pharrell is also the guy who rapped on and produced “Mr. Me Too” for Clipse. “Mr. Me Too” is diss for Drake’s mentor, Lil Wayne. P and Clipse felt like Weezy was copying their fashion sensibility, so they made a whole song mocking him. In this sense, Pharrell dissing Drake is a long time coming. We don’t have confirmation that Drizzy is the target of Pharrell’s Despicable Me 4 single, but it’s not hard to believe.

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Pharrell Spices Up The ‘Despicable Me 4’ Soundtrack With The Groovy New Song ‘Double Life’

June 14, 2024 by newhiphopnews

The Despicable Me franchise has been very good to Pharrell: He’s been involved on the music side of things since the first movie, and the second film’s breakout hit “Happy” was a No. 1 single and is the biggest song of Pharrell’s career. Well, Despicable Me 4 is set to hit theaters in July, and ahead of that, Pharrell has a new song from the movie, sharing “Double Life” today.

The tune isn’t as general and movie-agnostic as something like “Happy” (“Who will you be tonight? / That’s the question / Who will Gru be tonight? / That’s the question,” goes the song’s refrain), but it has a great groove and that Gru refrain is actually catchy as hell. This probably won’t be a world-changing single like “Happy,” but it’s in the upper tier of kids movie soundtrack fare.

This follows the Black Yacht Rock album Pharrell quietly released earlier this year. Uproxx named it one of the best albums of 2024 so far, and Uproxx’s Aaron Williams noted, “The most compelling thing about this album is watching a master at work, with a focused goal, crafting some of the best music of a long and storied career in service of shedding light on an oft-maligned musical mode.”

Listen to “Double Life” above.

WATCH: Pharrell Williams New Trailer For ‘Piece by Piece’ His Lego Animated Biopic Film

June 10, 2024 by newhiphopnews

The new trailer for Focus Features’ upcoming movie “Piece by Piece” is here. Variety reported on this intriguing entry point to share a trailer. And get this, in the trailer Lego Pharrell tells the director, Morgan Neville, “You know what would be cool is if we told my story with Lego pieces.” Who’s Neville, oh he’s just an Oscar-winning documentarian behind “20 Feet From Stardom,” who responds “Seriously?” Pharrell replies, “Just be open.”

How did we get here? This reimagined scene actually mirrors a real conversation from nearly five years ago, according to Neville, who shared this tidbit, “That’s how the conversation went down in my head. I didn’t know what it was going to be, but it was going to be interesting and I was completely in.”

Neville doesn’t shy away from the innovation of “Piece by Piece” as he describes the film as unprecedented: “What we made is not like any other movie. I don’t know what a comp for it would be. People can try and label it. It’s just its own film. It’s mind-blowing, in a way, the freedom that we were able to put together in the film, but that only works if you’re channeling your subject.”

The trailer also highlights Williams’ unique perspective on art. Which is highly publicized from his music, to fashion and more “I loved music. It was mesmerizing to me,” he narrates over a scene from his youth.

The post WATCH: Pharrell Williams New Trailer For ‘Piece by Piece’ His Lego Animated Biopic Film first appeared on The Source.

The post WATCH: Pharrell Williams New Trailer For ‘Piece by Piece’ His Lego Animated Biopic Film appeared first on The Source.

Trailer for LEGO Animated Pharrell Williams Biopic Featuring Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, and More Released

June 7, 2024 by newhiphopnews

Pharrell Williams Looks Back on 2020.jpg

The trailer for Pharrell Williams’ upcoming biopic and it’s exactly what we expected—immense unadulterated and epic creativity. The iconic producer will be voicing himself in animated LEGO form, accompanied by some A-list collaborators from his chart-topping career.

Gwen Stefani, Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z, and Snoop Dogg are among the guest stars from Williams’ 30-year career that will feature in “Piece by Piece.” The trailer depicts a LEGO-ized version of Williams, Hugo, and Snoop Dogg devising the hit “Drop it Like it’s Hot.” It also revealed that the film would include new music from Williams, adding another layer of excitement for fans.

Announced in January by Focus Features, the film is directed by Morgan Neville. Neville shared that Williams approached him five years ago with the unique concept for the biopic.

“When I had this crazy vision to tell this story through LEGO bricks, I couldn’t have imagined a better partner than Morgan. He is a legend,” Williams said in a statement. “Who would’ve thought that playing with these toys as a kid would evolve into a movie about my life? It’s proof that anyone else can do it too.”

Morgan Neville, primarily known as a documentary filmmaker, won an Oscar for his 2014 feature “20 Feet From Stardom,” which explores the careers and lives of backup singers. Neville’s expertise in bringing real-life stories to the screen in an engaging manner makes him a fitting choice for this innovative project.

As half of the foundational production duo The Neptunes, Williams has set the backdrop for some of music’s greatest hits. Formed in Virginia Beach in 1992 by childhood friends Williams and Chad Hugo, The Neptunes quickly rose to prominence, writing and producing for artists such as Teddy Riley, The Clipse, Usher, Nelly, and Britney Spears. Pharrell’s iconic four-count instrumental opening tags chart-toppers from Kelis’ “Milkshake” to Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” to Williams’ own “Happy.”

“Piece by Piece” will be released in theaters on October 11. The anticipation is high for this unique blend of animation, music history, and the inspiring story of Pharrell Williams. You can watch the trailer below:

Be sure to mark your calendars for this groundbreaking film that promises to be as innovative and influential as Williams’ career itself.

The post Trailer for LEGO Animated Pharrell Williams Biopic Featuring Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, and More Released first appeared on The Source.

The post Trailer for LEGO Animated Pharrell Williams Biopic Featuring Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, and More Released appeared first on The Source.