Pharrell's been a busy man this year. The tastemaking hit-machine recently sat with GQ to rap a bit on what these past few yeas have been like for him, charting his resurgence, his style and even his failures. He addresses his lackluster solo debut In My Mind, what separates it from his latest record and why he took his next solo venture G I R L in the crooning direction. Peep some compelling excerpts from the interview below, but be sure to check out the full script over at GQ.
On His Previous Solo Project In My Mind:
“I wrote those songs out of ego. Talking about the money I was making and the by-products of living that lifestyle. What was good about that? What’d you get out of it? There was no purpose. I was so under the wrong impression at that time.”
On Finding His Own Path:
“So when I write a song on In My Mind called ‘How Does It Feel?’ ”—that’s the one that goes: See me on the TV, the cuties they wanna fuck—“man, what was I talking about? That wasn’t joy. That was just bragging. I wanted to be like Jay. I wanted to be like Puff. Those are their paths. I got my own path. But I didn’t know what my path was. I knew that I was meant to do something different. I knew that I needed to inject purpose in my music. And I thought that was my path. I didn’t realize that like, from ’08 up until now was like, training. Like, keep putting purpose in everything you do. Don’t worry about it; just put purpose in there.”
On The Meaning of G I R L:
“I instantly knew that the name of the album was called G I R L, and the reason why is because women and girls, for the most part, have just been so loyal to me and supported me. There is no breathing human being on this planet that did not benefit by a woman saying yes twice. Yes to make you, and yes to have you. Point-blank. If women wanted to cripple the economy, all they gotta do is not go to work.”
