Teyana Taylor Says Pharrell Williams “Didn’t Protect” Her While At Star Trak

While on Angie Martinez’s IRL Podcast, Teyana Taylor reflected on her time at Star Trak Entertainment as a teenager.

Just one year after being slammed by Kelis, Pharrell Williams is now catching heat from former Star Trak Entertainment act Teyana Taylor. The star of A Thousand and One was recently on the Angie Martinez IRL podcast, where she reflected on being signed to Skateboard P in the late- 2000s.

“Getting signed to a man, it was like a figure to me… I looked at these people like figures. Whether it was as a dad, as a brother, it didn’t matter,” Taylor said, alluding to Williams. “So it’s like, you didn’t see me, you didn’t hear me, you didn’t protect me. you kind of just like fed me to the wolves type-sh*t without probably even knowing. Some of those conversations still need to be had.”

She continued, “I had a really really, really, really deep and honest conversation with Pharrell because you know, he was the first person to sign me. He was Skateboard P, I was Skateboard T. You cannot tell me that wasn’t my pops. I really looked up to him. He didn’t have kids at the time, and he wanted kids. He’d be like ‘Yo she call me her pops.’ He was really proud of that.”

Williams appeared on Taylor’s now-classic episode of My Super Sweet Sixteen and the 32-year-old’s first music video, “Google Me.” Her planned Star Trak debut From A Planet Called Harlem, went unreleased as Taylor would ultimately leave the label for G.O.O.D. Music, where she remained from 2012 to 2020.

“He’s not confrontational at all. He’s literally one of the sweetest people in just the whole wide world, you know what I’m saying?” Taylor told Martinez. “So, it wasn’t that he didn’t protect me, it’s just that a lot of hands started going into the cookie jar… it’s P, he not bout to be like ‘no, yall ni**as back up,” she said.

She continued, “Maybe he was hurt about some things. You don’t know. It could’ve been a thing of pride and ego at the time. We don’t know. To me, as a 15-year-old, it was, you didn’t protect me. You let everyone mishandle me. I signed to you. You let everybody get in the way and everybody break us apart. You didn’t protect me.”

The “Rose In Harlem” singer later shared that the two are on good terms, having patched things up in the last decade, possibly after Taylor’s appearance in Kanye West’s “Fade” music video.

“That’s what made it even doper. Because for me, I was at the top, top, top when that sh*t came out,” she said. “And for me, I love that I was able to share that with him during a high and not like hitting somebody up while you’re angry and sitting around somewhere bitter, nah it wasn’t that. I was in a poised, graceful place, and just let him know how proud I was of just us and how far we’ve come.”

“I be basking in my blessings, and I will be having them moments when I just think, damn, no matter how I felt when I was younger, none of these doors would have ever opened for me if it wasn’t for P,” she said.

Taylor has since moved on from music after announcing her retirement in 2022. She’s most recently become a creative director for Latto, choreographing her Coachella performance.