Pharrell Williams’ Solution To Life’s Mysteries? “Empathy”

A golden rule from the master...

Pharrell Williams once told Clash that the solution to life’s mysteries is empathy.

The modern great turns 50 today – April 5th – and if we’re honest, looks better than people half his age. One of the most successful producers, songwriters, performers, and all-round artists of his or any other era, Pharrell has broken every record going.

Whether it’s his work with the Neptunes, his solo work, or his multiple collaborations, Pharrell continues to break new ground. Indeed, his catalogue is so imposing it can move from producing Clipse’ seminal rap record ‘Hell Hath No Fury’ to the global solo hit ‘Happy’ while still hanging together in a form of unity.

Clash was given an audience with Pharrell Williams back in 2018, and he mused on his fondness for collaboration. “Collaboration is like a crash course most of the time, when I’m learning something new. It’s like a crash course into whatever item, object or artistic discipline that we’re working on at that time. It just allows me to learn. I’ve learned so much in collaboration. I prefer to work with masters because then I’m actually learning.”

“All of my biggest songs were songs that I did with or for other people. Collaboration has always been part of my DNA. And, to be clear and to be honest, songs that I ended up putting out by myself were always songs that I wrote for other people. I made ‘Frontin’ for Prince, and even ‘Happy’, I wrote that for CeeLo [Green].”

Elsewhere, Pharrell got philosophical, touching on the key component that we all need for a happy life – empathy.

“Empathy is the skeleton key to any room. It’s the number one thing that we need before love. Because if you have no empathy, then you can’t even get to why you should love someone else. That goes for the one that you marry, the one that you hate, your parents, your children, strangers. If you have no empathy, it’s not possible for you to like and definitely not possible for you to love.”

Re-visit the conversation in full in the Clash archive.

Photography: Yann Faucher

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