Phoenix haven’t historically been known for their collaborations, but they’ve actually been busting them out as of late. Their latest album, 2022’s Alpha Zulu, includes the Ezra Koenig-featuring “Tonight,” Clairo joined the group for a remix of “After Midnight” earlier this year, and now Phoenix has unveiled another new Alpha Zulu remix, featuring Pusha T, Benee, and Chad Hugo.
That may seem like a random or unexpected mix of collaborators, but it all makes sense: The band said in a statement, “A huge thank you to le Roi Pusha-T – most played artist in our backstage; to Chad Hugo, who always showed up when we were playing in Virginia, it’s about time we worked together! And to Benee, who worked at light speed to make this happen and added some magic. MERCI!!!”
The band’s Thomas Mars previously told Uproxx of Alpha Zulu, “Every album we make is a reaction to previous one. As we were digging into this one, we realized that we were putting the songs that had the least in common together. We tried to open the spectrum as much as possible and make a little bit of a Frankenstein.”
On this date in 2001, the self-proclaimed “King Of The South,” rapper/actor T.I., released his first album entitled I’m Serious.
Produced by several behind the board legends including ATL’s DJ Toomp, Jazze Pha, Lil Jon, The Neptunes, and few others, with features from Pharrell, Bone Crusher, Too Short, Pastor Troy, and many other South and West icons still did not garner him the commercial success that he would eventually be recognized for his music as well as in the cinema.
With this being T.I.’s lowest-selling album, Arista Records made the heartbreaking move to cut him from the label after selling less than 300K copies. This was the obvious silver lining in the cloud because T.I has not only went on to become one of the top-selling Hip-Hop artists to date but has also made his mark on the silver screen starring along with the likes of Denzel Washington, Ruby Dee, and many others.
Regardless of what the critics have to say, salute to T.I. for offering up this underground Hip-Hop classic!
On this day in 1973, the seemingly ageless producer, singer, rapper, author, designer, creative director, and label head Pharrell Williams was born 48 years ago. His music has touched the hearts and minds of literally billions of people, his humanitarian efforts have helped toward preserving the planet for the next generation to enjoy, and his actions to promote happiness and equality have helped move society in a positive direction.
Pharrell Lanscilo Williams was born in Virginia Beach, Virginia to Pharaoh and Carolyn Williams. He is the eldest of three sons. His love for music and art started at a young age. He met the other half of the legendary production duo The Neptunes, Chad Hugo, at band camp in the seventh grade. Pharrell at the time played the piano and the drums and Hugo played the tenor saxophone. In the early 90s, Pharrell and Hugo formed the group The Neptunes and signed with Teddy Riley of Interscope Records upon graduating high school.
Success began to come in 1993 when Pharrell met fellow Virginia rappers Clipse. The rap duo signed to Artista Records under Pharrell’s Star Trak Entertainment. In 1994 Pharrell and Chad Hugo officially established themselves at The Neptunes and produced part of Blackstreet’s self-titled album. By the 2000s the Neptunes had a name for themselves and in 2001 got their first international #1 hit with Britney Spears’ “I’m a Slave 4 U.”
That same year Pharrell, Hugo, and Shae Haley released their first album as the group N*E*R*D titled In Search of… in Europe, where the first Kelis album, produced by The Neptunes, had its best reception. After realizing that the album sounded much like their other work, the group decided to reproduce the album with Spymob. In 2002 the re-release of the album came with amazing reception and Pharrell was named Producer of the Year by Billboard and The Source.
In 2003 The Neptunes released their only album The Neptunes Present…Clones which was a compilation of songs and remixes by Pharrell and Hugo. The album featured Busta Rhymes, Clipse, Ludacris, Jay-Z, Nelly, Snoop Dogg, Jadakiss, ODB, Kelis, and Nas and debuted #1 on the Billboard 200. It also claimed the #1 spot on the UK R&B Albums chart and the Dutch MegaChart.
The next year N*E*R*D released their second album Fly or Die which was more popular than the first. It had a very positive international reception. That same year Pharrell received two Grammy awards, one for Producer of the Year and a second for Best Pop Vocal Album for his work on Justin Timberlake’s Justified album. He also put out the hit single “Drop It Like It’s Hot” that year with Snoop Dogg, which was Pharrell’s first #1 single in the US.
In 2006, Pharrell released his first solo album. In My Mind was released on July 25 and debuted at #3 on the Billboard 200 chart where it peaked. The album is full of hits with artists likeKanye West, Gwen Stefani, Nelly, Snoop Dogg, and more.
Over the next few years, Pharrell continued to produce hit songs as well as build his fashion empire with his brands Billionaire Boys Club and ICECREAM. His work with a designer and BAPE founder Nigo helped him to rise to prominence in the early 2000s as a streetwear designer. His popularity grew as a designer was almost simultaneous with his growth as an artist.
During the 2010’s Pharrell has continued to have a creative influence. His 2013 single “Happy” from his second album Girl has become the international anthem for happiness around the world and can be considered his most popular record. This decade he has also begun hisi am Other campaign which is a multimedia creative collective and record label that serves as the overarching brand over his many endeavors including: Billionaire Boys Club, ICECREAM, Bionic Yarn and the Youtube channel that launched as i Am Other’s founding platform. Most recently, Pharrell can be seen as a host of the popular TV show, The Voice. He has also just been named the creative director of the well established denim brand G-Star Raw.
Pharrell’s has become synonymous with Hip Hop and his brand is one that has inspired many in the generations under and above him. On behalf of everyone here at The Source we’d like to wish Pharrell Williams a happy born day, may he see many more years of success.
On this day in Hip-Hop history, Nas released his sixth studio album, God’s Son, in 2002. This may be Nas’ most emotional album coming at a rough time in his personal life. With the passing of his mother and his bout with fellow New York rapper Jay-Z at its height, Nas catered his lyricism to be more introspective in relation to his own trials and tribulations. Nas crowned himself “God’s Son” in tribute to his mother’s legacy and to point out a self-acclaimed likeness to Jesus Christ.
The production Nas collected for this project was astounding. Working with The Alchemist, Salaam Remi, Eminem, and even Alicia Keys helped to create a sound true to New York Hip-Hop with its own modern twist. Salaam Remi produced the bulk of the album and in a time when rap was something for the club and a Neptunes’ beat was a signature this soulfully classic sound was refreshing. The beats alone were critically acclaimed being mentioned in Vibe and Stylus Magazine and by countless critics.
Lyrically, Nas went in the opposite direction of what was popular at the time. As always, there was a true and necessary message behind everything that was said on the album, not to mention his flow and delivery were impeccable. The content was also deeply connected to what was going on in his own life. His references on songs like “Warrior” and “Last Real N***** Alive” were in reverence of his recent past mother. He even dedicated the track “Dance” to his mom. There were also a lot of Christian undertones throughout the album. Whether it be through titles of a song or metaphorically in bars spat, Nas’s religious views were intertwined with the majority of this album. Some of the other lyricists featured on the album were Alicia Keys and Nas’s ex-wife Kelis.
Commercially, this album was successful as well. It was certified platinum on January 14, 2003, and peaked at #18 on the US Billboard 200 chart. It also claimed the #1 spot on the Billboard Hip Hop/ R&B chart. The singles from this album, “Made You Look”, “I Can”, and “Get Down,” were also hits. Two of the Three released claimed spots on the Billboard Hot 100. “Made You Look” peaked at #32 and “I Can” peaked at #12. “I Can” has become a timeless song in Hip Hop over the years being an anthem of lifelong success for children in the black community.
Two decades ago today, Terrence and Gene Thorton aka Pusha T and Malice put out Lord Willin’, The Clipse’s debut album that helped them solidify their spots within honorable mention of some of the best lyricists in the game.
Produced exclusively by the Neptunes on Pharrell Williams’ Star Trak imprint, the album displayed The Clipse’s microphone prowess, which helps the squares navigate through their cocaine-flooded street slang. Along with artists like Timbaland and Magoo, Missy Elliot, and Pharrell, The Clipse was an intricate part of establishing VA as one of the East Coast’s strongholds in Hip Hop, which made room for artists like Chris Brown and Wale to add on to the legacy.
Some of the most memorable gems from the Twin Thorton’s first album include “Cot Damn” featuring their Re-Up Gang affiliates Ab-Liva and Philly’s Roscoe P. Coldchain, “When The Last Time” with their Star Trak team members Kelis and Pharrell, and the infamous “Grindin’” with remixes featuring Noreaga, and another infamous duo, Lil Wayne and Birdman.
Salute to Pusha, No Malice, Pharrell, and the rest of the Star Trak team for pushing out this timeless classic!
A couple days ago, Kelis shared an Instagram post showing off her hair and outfit. The post had nothing to do with her beef with Beyoncé over sampling “Milkshake” on Renaissance cut “Energy,” but the comments section quickly became all about it.
Responding to comments from fans and detractors, Kelis declared she “won” by Beyoncé removing the sample and also called the Beyhive “a joke.” Beyond that, she also responded to an interesting point.
A fan mentioned how Bia referenced the “Milkshake” lyrics in her 2021 song “Can’t Touch This,” writing, “Not here to cause problem but genuinely concerned why you ain’t say nothing when @bia did ‘can’t touch this’ and took the whole ‘my milkshare brings all the boys to the yard’ ?” To that, Kelis answered, “like I’ve said, it’s all a problem. Every single time. But this was personal on many levels which people don’t understand and I didn’t care to go further into. But yes. It is all a problem that I am going to fix .”
On a related note, another fan commented, “Why can’t we as sisters ever settle anything behind closed doors without giving others the satisfaction of making it look like a feud? I’m so curious to know and understand.” Kelis answered, “it’s bigger then that.”
One of those aforementioned levels is presumably related to Pharrell and Chad Hugo (who produced “Milkshake” as The Neptunes), as she called them out last month. A hater took to the comments to bring them up, writing, “If the Neptunes were so bad to you how come everything you did after you left them flopped? They gave you your big break and your biggest singles which allow you to still tour 20 years later but you’re acting like they stole something from you. You owe everything you have to them be grateful.”
In response, Kelis wrote, “that’s funny cause right after I left them I did bossy and many of my biggest songs were not Neptune produced. And I never said they weren’t talented . I said they are bad people. And further more I made them as much as they made me. Do your homework dumb dumb.”
By now, you are probably aware of Kelis’ ongoing grievance with Beyonce’s new album Renaissance, but if not, here’s a quick refresher. Last Thursday, Kelis posted a video relaying her resentment and dismay at learning that a song from the upcoming album, “Energy,” apparently used a sample (or interpolation, we’ll get into the differences later) of her song “Milkshake.” Kelis’ objected to Beyonce’s representatives neglecting to contact her for approval for using the snippet in “Energy.”
Of course, once the wider internet caught wind of Kelis’ complaints, a widescale donnybrook ensued that found fans taking sides between the two artists to argue whether Kelis deserved such a contact, Beyonce did anything wrong, or whether some other factor was to blame between the two. Even iconic songwriter Diane Warren weighed in to offer her own sorta shady take on songwriting, sampling, and how such things should be credited. Things came to a head when Beyonce removed elements of “Energy” from DSPs on Tuesday.
However, in all of the fuss, it seemed that more than anything else, fans were confused by the difference between what an interpolation and a sample are, let alone the mechanics of how songwriting credits are issued. Many folks still can’t tell where the interpolation appears in the song, despite her leaving the actual interpolation untouched. It all seems very complicated, so I reached out to an expert to help clear things up.
Naima Cochrane is an industry veteran with 20 years of experience working in entertainment law alongside the late, great Reggie Osse — aka Combat Jack — as well as a journalist who has written for major publications like Billboard, Mic, Vibe, and Vulture. Her Music Sermon Twitter lectures draw massive engagement from fans as she discusses the history and legacy of Black musical movements and culture-defining moments of the past three decades. She graciously agreed to a Zoom interview to sort out the terminology, backstory, and impact of this fraught situation, as well as whether Kelis has a point. “The whole thing is confusing for folks,” she says. Hopefully, this will help make it less so.
So, let’s just get to the root of what we think this dispute between Kelis and whoever she’s disputing with is about. She didn’t like that she wasn’t contacted for clearance for what she believed to be at the time to be a sample of her song “Milkshake” on Beyonce’s new album Renaissance.
Well, at first she didn’t think it was “Milkshake.” She got information about another track initially from a Beyonce fan site before the album came out. I think it was Beylegion who said that Beyonce was sampling. And that was prerelease.
And what she wound up using was an interpolation of drums from “Milkshake?”
Yeah, that kind of… That basic, kind of Neptunesish drum beat that’s under the track. The “la, la, las” were credited to… I know people are debating whether those were part of the sample or interpolation, but those should be credited to Teena Marie.
Okay, so why do we think that this turned Kelis off so much?
Well, I think it’s a couple things. I haven’t seen the original post that Kelis reacted to, but apparently, the first mention that Kelis saw used something like Beyonce was either collaborating with people including Kelis, or collaborating with Kelis, but there was something about collaboration. And also, like I said, they named a different track.
I think that that language triggered Kelis. She’s in a space. She recently lost her husband, which I’m going to acknowledge and dare to say if she’s already in that space of grieving, the perception of additional loss or especially unfair loss could possibly be a spark. But also, Kelis has been increasingly vocal lately about the fact that she feels Pharrell and Star Trak gave her a bum deal, specifically that she contributed more as a writer to the songs that she performs than she’s been given credit for and that Pharrell [cheated] her out of her publishing.
Is it not standard practice to contact someone when you want to sample or interpolate their work?
She made it seem as though it was standard practice in the music industry for an artist to contact a performer — and by performer, I mean the person who sang the song, even if they didn’t write and produce the song. Even if that person isn’t a publishing rights holder to just give a, quote, unquote, “heads up,” a courtesy heads up. In theory, I can see why people think this makes sense. In reality, if you understand how extensive the clearance process is for an album, you would understand why this is not realistic. This is not a practice that happens.
First of all, there’s two things that people don’t do: even when artists are getting clearance for samples from artists that they’re cool with, Beyonce did not call Pharrell and say, “I’m about to sample ‘Milkshake.’” That is not a conversation that happened. What happens is the lawyer contacts the other lawyer. That lawyer goes back to their client, “Beyonce has an interpolation on a song. She’s offering you this percentage. Are you cool? Yeah? No?” Boom.
The only time artists even contact artists directly when we’re talking about a sample or interpolation for clearance is when there’s a serious deference situation going on like maybe it’s a new artist and they’re worried that this other artist will pass and they really want to appeal to them directly, or when there’s some kind of impasse in the approval so they need to talk to each other to make an appeal. Maybe somebody wants to change some lyrics. For example, Stevie did that with Coolio, for “Gangsta’s Paradise.” He wouldn’t approve “Pastime Paradise” until Coolio changed some lyrics.
And as far as alerting Kelis, who I presume is not the publishing rights holder?
The second part is nobody calls people who aren’t copyright holders to say, “I’m using a song you performed on,” because what purpose does that serve? Because Kelis can’t get a check off of [something she’s not legally entitled to]. And this is the part where people are stuck. Because people are like, “Well, if she knows that Kelis is fighting Pharrell on her publishing, she could show support.” And that’s where I’m like, “Okay A, that presupposes that Beyonce agrees that Kelis has a case against Pharrell,” because Kelis never filed a piece of paper against Pharrell, Neptunes, or Star Trak.
B, though, more importantly, this would be Beyonce going on record as saying she supports the theory that Kelis has the standing in publishing a claim for this record. Beyonce can’t get Kelis paid for this record. That’s the thing that some people don’t seem to understand. No matter what Beyonce does, she can’t arbitrarily cut Kelis in on this record. She can’t. That’s not a thing. People seem to think, “Oh, if she put her name in the credits, Kelis is going to get paid.” No, she’s not ’cause Kelis is not an owner of the song. Period. So Beyonce credited her as a performer of the song. She did that on her website, which is different than a legal line.
300 credits on her website because her intention was to actually give the people who don’t usually show up in credits because they are not owners of the song or composition, lyrics or composition, give them a chance to actually be credited.
Yeah. Because of course, that would spark someone’s interest and they would discover someone and maybe go play their music and get them that streaming or a record sale or something.
Exactly. It’s a discovery thing. Ms. Tina [Knowles, Beyonce’s mother] said she really was conscious of trying to make sure people who maybe don’t always get a look, got the look. She credited Clark Sisters on “Church Girl.” She credited Robin S. on “Break My Soul.” So the thing about the conversation is that then it took this really weird turn that all things Beyonce and Jay tend to take, where because Beyonce is who she is, she is held to this really ridiculous standard, right?
So that’s the first thing. I don’t believe that Kelis is a co-writer on “Milkshake.” Even if she were, there are two parts to song ownership. There is lyrics and there is composition. This is aside from the masters ownership, which I know is confusing. There’s masters and there’s publishing. The masters is ownership of the recorded song itself, the version that’s on an album, the version that was released for sale. Then when you’re talking about an interpolation, we’re not talking about masters clearance. We’re talking solely about publishing.
So we are looking at either composition and lyrics or both. Even if Kelis was a co-writer of “Milkshake,” she would not have been part of this because the producers of “Energy” interpolate the track, not the lyrics, not the vocals. So for the people who are like, “Well it’s Kelis’s song,” it’s also Pharrell and Chad’s song. Kelis performed that song. It is not solely Kelis’s song. There’s nothing of Kelis on “Energy.”
One of the things that I wanted to ask you about was that we’ve seen a lot of these contract publishing rights disputes come up a lot more in recent years.
I have a couple of answers and they go in a couple of different directions. The first thing is that sometimes artists get great counsel and they don’t listen. Sometimes it’s pressure. Sometimes it’s promises that sound good in the moment. Sometimes it’s “Who you going to listen to, them or me? You should trust me. I’m your family. I got your best interest at heart.” It’s any number of things.
There is also, like Kelis, there is a production deal. Kelis was not signed directly to a major. Kelis was signed to Star Trak. Now, when you are signed to a production deal, that means that that company, like with a major label, is going to front all the costs to develop you, to make your music, to basically put together a whole package, and then shop you to a label. But shop you as part of them. It’s a package deal. So the production company gets signed to the label. So what happens is there is a pass-through before you even see your money. And usually, when you hear artists complain about they ain’t seen a dollar, they ain’t see no dough, not even an advance, it’s because they were to a production deal.
So why do we think Beyonce removed the vocal portion and not the actual interpolation, which was the drums?
Right. She did not remove the actual interpolation of the song. That’s important because even outlets are reporting stuff like, “Beyonce removed contested Kelis sample.” There was no Kelis sample, that was the point. People were arguing that they heard Kelis’ voice in those “la la las.” I ain’t hearing nobody talk about the fact that Grace Jones was on the album, but we talking about Kelis all day.
I think, knowing a little bit about how [Beyonce’s] mind works and how she operates from a business perspective, rather than have this conversation distract from the larger conversation about her album, she was like, “Let me just remove this entire distraction. Let’s just take it off the table. Boom. Done.”
So how do artists avoid getting into situations like this one, or like how we’ve been talking about Megan Thee Stallion with 1501 or Fivio Foreign with Mase?
I think there does, unfortunately, have to be some self-ownership with artists who are looking to get in the business to educate themselves or to take time to find a really good manager and to ask a lot of questions. Honestly, that’s my solution for everything. Ask all the f*cking questions, ask every goddamn question. Don’t be afraid to sound stupid. If they don’t want to answer it, ask them again. Because if you don’t, or if you try to be too cool for school, or if you’re going off of an assumption, that’s how you end up X years later being like, “Well, I don’t know what happened with my deal.”
