Hip-Hop's Chic Geek

By Josh Tyrangiel

At first blush, Pharrell Williams appears to be a monumental idiot. Williams--one half of the prolific producing-songwriting team the Neptunes--hits on nearly every woman he sees, often in a voice loud enough to alert approaching women that he is a serial pickup artist. In restaurants each bite of food is followed by a throwing down of silverware and a declaration that his meal, above all others at the table, is "Bazooka!" In interviews he gleefully tells bawdy stories only to declare them off the record well after they have been tape recorded, transcribed and irreparably burned into memory.

Fortunately, there is empirical data to refute the Williams-as-idiot thesis. The Neptunes (Williams and partner Chad Hugo) are responsible for nine Top 10 hits over the past two years and countless Top 10 rap tracks. No one in hip-hop has as diverse or as deep a songwriting portfolio, and artists from Nelly (Hot in Herre) to Britney Spears (I'm a Slave 4 U) regularly fork over six figures for a Neptunes melody. Williams and Hugo are also members of N.E.R.D., a rock/hip-hop band whose debut album, In Search of ... , was one of the best-reviewed records of 2001. But the real exculpatory evidence--the proof that Williams is not only not an idiot but also the best thing to happen to hip-hop in years--is anecdotal: he never succeeds in picking up women, although he does sign a lot of autographs once they realize he's famous; he offers his bazooka! food to everyone because all things bazooka! taste better shared; and his bawdy stories all end the same way, with Williams alone and unsatisfied.

Pharrell Williams the idiot, it turns out, is the ironic creation of Pharrell Williams the geek. "I'm no rapper," he says sheepishly. "I'm, like, a suburban kid." Ever since Williams, 30, and Hugo met in seventh grade at a school for gifted children in Virginia Beach, Va., they have been masking their insecurities beneath the brashness of hip-hop. The key to their success is that while fantasizing about being tougher than leather, they never forgot that they were softer than puppies. "A lot of people get caught up with making music into their identity," says Williams. "But my people--hybrid people--we respond to everything. I love Kool Moe Dee, but I also love America. And I would never let my appreciation for one kind of music keep me from listening to another."

As producers, the Neptunes remain hybrid people. A typical Neptunes track might mix classic rock riffs and hip-hop beats with '80s pop-culture remnants (like sound effects from Atari games or the rings from early mobile phones). For pop artists looking for urban credibility--your Timberlakes, Aguileras et al.--the Neptunes crank up the beat and the attitude. On the flip side, they imbue hard rappers with much needed emotional depth. "We want people to sound different," says Williams, who made the menacing Mystikal sound funky on Shake Ya Ass and Snoop Dogg almost tender on Beautiful. "Taking somebody from A to B is cool, but when we produce, we want to take people from A to D, to challenge their artistic natures, their image, everything."

For Hugo, producing is enough of a challenge. At 29, he is married with two kids and prefers handling the Neptunes' daily business at the band's Virginia Beach recording studio. "I don't mind being the one surrounded by tapes and buttons," he says. (It is Hugo who usually puts together the melodic skeleton of a song, while Williams works on the beats and lyrics with the artist.) "I'll put it to you this way: if we were a rock band--like Van Halen--I'd be Eddie Van Halen, the guy who just gets transported by practicing guitar riffs and learning techniques."

That would leave Williams to fill the sequined shoes of David Lee Roth, and sure enough, he's making a play. This week marks the arrival of The Neptunes Present ... Clones. The album features JayZ, Nelly, Snoop Dogg and Busta Rhymes rapping over characteristically ebullient Neptunes tracks as well as rock from N.E.R.D. and Spymob, the Neptunes' house band. It should debut at No. 1 on Billboard's album chart. But the real gift on Clones is Williams. He comes out from behind the mixing boards to sing on the album's first single, Frontin', which sounds like nothing else on the radio. Over a jumpy, lover-man R.-and-B. riff, Williams slides into a quavering falsetto and sings, "I know that I'm carrying on/never mind if I'm showing off/I was just frontin'." If Frontin' were a Prince song, it would be erotic. If it were a Biz Markie song, it would be ironic. Williams manages to make it both, and Frontin' is already No. 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart.

When talking about becoming a star, Williams can occasionally let his idiot side take over. "I want people to know that I'm a regular guy. You've got to put that in your story. I'm not Hollywood," he says as his giant bodyguard whisks him from a tinted SUV into a Manhattan restaurant. Of course, this being Pharrell Williams, the moment can't pass without a bit of irony. "Also put in your story that I'm single and nice?" Done.