After comments earlier in the month confirming new music without his rapping on it, Pharrell recently clarified his stance in an interview with Fuse News following the Grammy Nominations. Early last week, Pharrell vaguely described a looming project while speaking to Complex. “I love rapping,” he said, “but something’s coming, and I’m not rapping on it…No rapping. It’s focused. Like I told you, that’s the difference between 30 and 40. ’Cause I was 30. Now I’m 40 and I’m not rapping.”
In the interview with Fuse News, Pharrell cleared up the statement with a promise that his rap career is not yet over. “I’m still gonna rap,” he said. “There was a misunderstanding—I rhyme. There’s just things that I can’t talk about at the moment that won’t have any rap in it. But I will be rapping.”
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Some of Pharrell’s most successful songs of the year, including a collaboration with the French electronic duo Daft Punk, represent new territory for the artist. “I’ve never been on the forefront of such a huge thing,” he said. “My understanding of what I was supposed to do, what I could do, had been turned inside out. That’s my life.”
While the producer kept quiet on at least one project while speaking with Fuse, he did confirm his scoring the soundtrack for the upcoming installment in the Spider Man movie series with Hans Zimmer.
Pharrell is nominated for seven Grammy awards, tying the number of nominations garnered by Kendrick Lamar, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, and Justin Timberlake each and trailing only Jay Z who has collected nine nominations. The Virginia Beach singer has been nominated in a number of categories including two nominations for Record of the Year and one as Producer of the Year. His name also appears as a producer on nominations for fellow artists Kendrick Lamar and Daft Punk. Pharrell placed an emphasis on his his collaborators and fans for the nominations in the recent Fuse News interview.
“You gotta look at all those songs and look at all the people involved,” he said, “they’re very responsible for my being able to have those seven nominations. I’m only as good as my collaborators like the robots [and] Robin Thicke…And the other thing, you have to factor in is the people. The people reacted and responded to the songs when they didn’t have to. The people who bought, requested, streamed, voted, and shared those songs with their friends, they share a portion of those acknowledgements. Yeah, am I proud of those seven nominations? Yes, but I share them with you. We gotta acknowledge.”
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In a separate interview with Billboard, Pharrell confirmed work on Beyonce’s album and spoke to the singer’s approach. “B’s album is crazy,” he said. “Let me tell you what it is. She’s very particular…And she’s not going to put it out until it’s ready and feels like it’s right to her. She’s got a very specific taste. I guess that’s the reason she’s Beyonce.”
