Pharrell and Rick Rubin Have an Epic Conversation | GQ

you did Rock de belles well rock the bells came out I was like what the is this you guys don't understand what you were doing to us in Virginia [Music] [Music] thankful to be here all good very so what you've been listening to lately anything exciting but for the most part you know I just like to be intrigued so tell me what intrigued looks like for you intrigued for me is first of all this moment is intriguing doing this with you right now that's intriguing but for me musically I feel like I'm not I'm not one of those guys that are like you know oh this is a 98 time signature this is amazing that just feels like math to me I think I get blown away by chord progressions that make me feel something I've never felt before like to me chords are coordinates you know mean they like send you to a place beautiful and when I'm lucky enough to be in the right elevator you know I'm looking up and I'm doing - I'm doing three things at once I'm going what is that mm-hmm number two I'm trying to like remember the feeling because when I go to chase it later that is I'm gonna have to reverse-engineer the feeling in order to get to the chord structure and third to just back it up by trying to Shazam it right then and there how great is Shazam Shazam is a gift yeah game-changer game-changer so if you find one what do you do with it let's say you hear something in that moment you have that experience you've Shazam dit yeah next what happens I just want to listen to it over and over and over again and really understand what I'm feeling and why I feel that way because there's a there's a there's a hold like University of Science between what's being played and what you're hearing yes so you're analyzing yourself as much as the music yeah because if you don't then you don't really you're not really getting the proper assessment of what's happening you know if I'm hearing something but I'm not paying attention to how I'm feeling then for me I don't know what I'm listening that's my way of that's my GPS of understanding that's how I process things is how I feel mm-hmm that everything is catalogued by and categorized by the feeling of it if I can't if I can't see how I feel about it and I don't even really know what it is it's just music so just give me you don't have to give me a specific example but what would be the kind of things that you'd be on the elevator that would stop you in your tracks you gain enough to be specific but how would you describe what you're hearing I'll take it outside of music turns it's kind of like being at a table with several people you're in a conversation with someone and all of a sudden you realize you've drifted off and thought and this person is still talking you hear their voice but you now no longer know what they're saying yes because you don't you're not connected to you're not you're not plugged in yes to the conversation yes so now it's just a bunch of vocal tone yeah that's what it's like if I'm not if my feeling is not connected to the song then I don't really know what I'm listening to couldn't really tell you what it was when you're working on music with other artists are you always working on it with them in mind are you working on your favorite music and then depending on who you're collaborating with it applies to it may or may not apply to them I'm always channeling other people usually the person that I'm working with I'm sort of channeling them other times I think that they should be channeling someone else so I'll do that for them and they may not suspect it it will sound good on them 60% of the time they don't do it 40% of the time people just trust and try it mm-hmm and within that 60% of the time it goes to someone else who absolutely gets it mm-hmm that's how the universe works yeah like there are all these triggers and not all of the ending results will be what you think it's supposed to be it's way that's what was written yes if your speaks a little bit to something you just said if you're working with an artist and you have a difference of opinion with the artist over something you're working on what what would normally happen oftentimes I take off my ego hat when I'm in the studio so a lot of times there's this thing that happens where it's like people respect for the most part like sometimes most most people assume like people respect others that they idolize but I found that people while sudden they do sometimes but I found that people really respect the person that they kind of feel like is the Alpha in the in their report and this new family poor but most producers they kind of like no I'm the Alpha like you know I used you nominate records I've sold yeah when troop Ito we've not sold anything we've only made music and people chose to stream it and share it and buying whatever we're not responsible for it our success there's degree millions of people who are responsible absolutely yeah but when you do that like oftentimes you run the risk of them just all of a sudden just being like man I went from like trembling my boots talking to my parents about being so excited to be at the room with this guy to like he you know I run the show and so when we get to that place that you're talking about when there's a subtle disagreement this is what I have to I don't I still leave my ego hat like hung up at the door but that's when I say you know maybe you should try this so you know what if you do that it's probably gonna be what you've been doing and my job is to nudge you to poke and prod and pull you and places that you would not go so that you can get a different result because if you do the same things you're just gonna make another one of those really well mm-hmm you don't I'm saying and that's when they have to trust you and that's that same kind of very subtle trust of when someone says oh you snore in your sleep but you but you're one of those people that doesn't snore and wake yourself up you just snoring a certain hour or whatever you just don't know yes you you know it's one of those subtle things that you just gotta trust that someone sees something that you can't see yes another example of what those subtleties is like you hear yourself talk all day and then you hear yourself when voice smelling you sound completely completely different and you hate what you hear right but everybody else hears the same thing yes but you hate that yes well the difference is is because we're listening through the cavity of our head but there again these people who don't notice those subtle differences they rule that out so if they can trust you enough yes to know that you can see hear or feel something that is way too close for them to discern then you guys have the ingredients great ingredients for like something new to come yes how often would you say that happens is it typical on most projects or once in a while or once in a blue moon every time I go on with Kendrick he transforms but he gets that he knows he's his next man he's super clear about that Arianna trusted jamesy gets it he's always gotten it I mean he's people don't realize he's been making records since the 80s that's unheard of what's the first record you made with him got a lot of records together I think it was given to me I think that was the first one let's say you were going into the studio tomorrow with the new artist you never worked with before what would a typical first day be like is there a typical first day it's what they come in talking about it's what they happen to be actually going through so what they're talking about at that particular moment it's what they happen to be going through and it's a new way that I can use their voice like a juxtaposition to what they usually do like if we were comparing their voice voices to textures if they had a like satin voice what would it sound like against granite versus you know cotton you know if they have like a crazy like diamond voice what does this sound like you know dropped in jello like how do i mix the sensory how I mix the sensories together usually when you start a project you come in with any ideas or thoughts before it starts or do you start with like a blank slate a lot of times I'll come in with like two or three ideas it might those be conceptual ideas or tracks tracks do you make tracks often yeah and do you make tracks regardless of thinking about where they're gonna go sometimes I think about where they're gonna go to get them out too late just to make them yeah I have to channel yeah i channel all the time I'm always pretending I'm someone else in order to get it to come out because I just feel like I'm the best version of myself is as a producer is I'm like a mirror for people I try to show them sides of themselves that they don't ever use as like when people take selfies they only take bite they only use like one side all the time so I'm the guy who's like hey you know God made another side like it's very interesting you should try it let's come up with a hypothetical example name an artist you like from childhood someone you listen to as a kid can you tell me someone Stevie Wonder okay so if you were producing a Stevie Wonder album what would be what's what would be your first instincts in making a Stevie Wonder project that you would want to listen to what would it be that's kind of difficult because he's done so many different genres I mean his reggae was amazing his disco was amazing his ballads were unbelievable his Parisian Burt Bacharach you know bossa nova' stuff was amazing so maybe use some maybe let's use somebody else okay I guess I only like eclectic people because I was gonna say Earth Wind and Fire but like they did a lot of chemicals absolutely I like a couple of non eclectic groups I like the Ramones and I wouldn't want them to be different yeah they were really good at that thing yeah yeah but more often than not I like the watching the evolution and growth maybe Prince that's a good one so what would what would the Pharrell produced Prince project what would be different about it maybe be interesting to hear him do like afro-cuban be incredible be something else yeah great idea beyond Stevie and Prince who would have been the music you listened to growing up earth one if I James Brown and you grew up in a musical household they played a lot of music all the time brothers and sisters yes music was just like in our environment it was just like in the environment and like going to church all the time you know like between getting in the car and listening to the music in the car listen to the music at home and at church like it was always something you grew up in Virginia yes sir and what was the music you listen to in the car what was the station on the FM side it was k94 and am side I was am 850 and everything from Rick James give it to me too thriller to another one bites the dust - [Music] Chuck Brown's bustin loose I mean it was a wide range it just wasn't much good did gogo make it to Virginia oh my goodness really gogo was the second sound of Virginia Wow it was everything Wow everything do you ever go to the go-go nothing like it nothing like it that's a world yeah and it's so interesting to me because it's such a pocket that if you go outside of DC North North wise like to New York like you wouldn't know anything about it no if you go but when you go down south you can find some of it in Delaware you could find a little bit of it in Maryland but not much and and Virginia was just big and the Carolinas it was big it was a world it's a world when I first heard it completely blew my mind completely it felt like it was the next like after hip hop the next wave it felt like that yeah I felt like that well you guys produce that out of Records with that sound yeah right yeah you did rock DuBose I haven't heard it in a while but hope it holds up that's crazy bro I was I never forget where I was when I heard rock the bells for the first time we were over my cousin's house out in Norfolk and uh I got a cousin named Fifi and my mom and dad used to go over their house over the weekends that were like we would just go over there to play cards well they would go at it play cards I don't know how today we'll play like spades and but when Rock the Bells came out I was like what the is this the because it was because we love gogo yeah so it was kind of like these New York guys which is like go-go sound and then like L was like the coolest had the crazy chains you guys don't understand what you were doing to us in Virginia it was a whole thing it was like you know yeah I bad I wanted a troop jacket like how bad I wanted a troop jacket I wanted that I wanted those chains the music just literally transformed it was doing things to our minds shifting our perspectives making us dance making us run to the television to watch you on TV wraps for a glimpse of anything yeah any kind of slang we savored it yeah because those records were so good people don't remember how hard it was to hear rap music no it was the underground of the underground yes it was a tiny subculture really tiny but he's super huge yes but also timing yeah like they like they did a lot to try to suppress it but the white kids loved it too much and there was no hate to make it racial but that's what changed it right we've been professed our love for it you guys been making it but you just couldn't you know they couldn't suppress that it just was too big it was just too strong it was too beautiful and it was igniting people in a way why do you think they wanted to suppress it they don't understand it in my opinion they didn't understand it they didn't understand what was coming from if you don't understand where it's coming from you really don't understand why it's necessary to support it and then like some a group of people realized there was a lot of money in it and then things changed obviously mmm I think it changed for the worst personally my experience was when people started getting involved once they saw they could make money in it yeah it changed the culture a little bit sure is early on anyone who's doing it clearly loved it because there was no upside so if you were doing it you had to love it yeah you just did it because it felt amazing that's it what's here what's your first memory of any hip-hop craftworks Wow interesting I wouldn't have given that answer even though probably same but I wouldn't have thought that yeah yeah we were hearing those records and we were like what is this another record it was very transformative in Virginia was strafe set it off yeah incredible one of the greats any time we were to club and that came on people just lost their mind one of the greats and there's not much to it if you think back every sound yeah every sound that's all yeah that's like what I was like trying to beat when we did grind and I was like trying to beat like the classic Miss of like set it off I mean the Benjamins is what sent sent us in the studio like okay we gotta like we gotta beat this yeah but set it off was like set it off was a hit for like eight more years yeah for sure for sure you can go out to a club today and still hear it and it would play like it played the day came out starts with one snare there was as a kid there was nothing like coming outside somebody pulling up like you know their car whatever you come outside and like one of the drug dealers is like you don't have the system light just knocking and then plants set it off and they all just sitting around like smoking a joint and you're just like these guys are Titans I mean that's how we looked at them they were like larger-than-life fear I mean every time you came outside you know the gold chains or whatever whatever and the music's playing those are videos at least that's how I was looking at it I will just go outside like wow we're losers well what we're gonna do today let's go loose squawk outside and you just see like the baddest chicks you know the hoop earrings the bicycle shorts you know with the incredible figures talking to the drug dealers and those guys are all just like you know chains out passing joints and set it off as playing and it's a movie another record to me that is like had like a eight year run white lines yeah how are you just like how do they just like nail each one of Planet Rock mm-hmm numbers set it off and white lines and Anam the message mm-hmm each one of those records so my question is like how like what were those guys feeling where was Grandmaster Flash and melly-mel feeling when they made a message I might argue Scorpio for that matter up there Scorpio yeah so knows DJ and how to always play Scorpia did you did you do that record to what L I don't know the jingling baby no that's after me okay because that's what he sample oh is it yeah no idea yeah that was a rocket yeah Bam Bam Bam pi PI pi PI pi PI pi PI pray so cool that's like music was a different kind of eclectic then any theories why technology where it was where it was instrumentation was still very much so a very big part of it there's a lot of predictive default modes in in the way that people program now yeah like so you don't have to play as much as you can you know it's perfect for someone who is a great player or someone who's not the best player but has ideas has really strong ideas so that takes a lot of the experimentation that the Machine can predict and get to but there's a different thing that man has that the machines don't it's an intuitive this yes an intuitive intuition and prediction are two different things and so the machine can do give you a bunch of predictive equations for examples of changes you might like or things you might want to do and make some really very interesting suggestions but it's predictive and it's pretty much based on like not even random but just like different variations whereas intuition is like no go completely left mm-hmm how much do you rely on technology like are you attached to certain instruments or certain technology I think I'm like pretty much porous at this point like I'm just open you know I like the way I work at the moment but I'm like open to ya new methods when you first started making music you went from not seeming like a hip-hop fan into what's the first thing you ever made regardless whether you put it out or not what was your first experiments in making your own music we chat and I and I and I haven't mentioned chat yet but because I think you asked me a lot of questions in reference to my own personal process but for a very big part of my career Chad and I work together and I think what we tried to do and we still work together yeah but I think for the most part what we always tried to do was reverse-engineer the songs that did something to us emotionally and figure out where the mechanism is and there and listen said to you before try to figure out if we can build a building that doesn't look the same but makes you feel the same way yeah I did that and blurred lines and got myself in trouble yeah that ridiculously Stevie Wonder told me he said you got to get the right musicologists in there because juries don't understand it's very technical what you've done yeah and it's the song is nothing like the song nope but the feeling was yeah but the feeling is a nice eye thing that you can copyright know you can't copyright a feeling y'all salsa songs sound pretty much the same yes and reggae songs or any genre 100% rap music sounds relatively similar yeah but here's the difference yeah what we failed and it hurt my feelings because I would never take anything from anyone of course and I really set me back I made Missy Elliott's where they from in the middle of that trial when I was really hurt because what I realized all too late was what he was trying to tell me is I needed to use what it used my gift to make music to reverse-engineer the the disparity between the truth and people's and the juries uneducated opinions and I say that because rayon and silk feel the same when we understand that there's a clear difference yeah and that was what what happened like I'm really made it feels so much like it yeah that people were like oh I hear the same thing yeah and it's like no yeah look at the notes yeah well you don't know then you know when you get like you know an ambulance chaser which is who they got it's got another one in like let me not speak negatively about them this was my lesson yeah I didn't take Stevie's advice to the fullest extent I did I thought I was but I never I really underestimated people are not not getting that yeah but the the issue is it it's bad for me it's bad for music because we've we've had an understanding of what a song is and now based on that one case now there's a question what it's all is yeah it's not what it used to be because in the past it would be the chords the melody and the words would be the song mm-hmm and your chords your melody and your words none of them had anything to do No so it was just a feeling but if I don't then you see what he's you know it leaves us as music makers in a really uncomfortable place making things because now we don't know what you can do I failed you I did I left it up to what I thought would be you know what was right yeah what I was wrong because I didn't go to the extra mile to get people to understand you can't you can cop you can copyright that which is tangible yes not the intangible yes and that's what they proved yes because I had a ability to make something feel very similar yes they said you know what this is wrong if it feels like it that's what it is well you can't copyright a feeling because if that's the case there will be a lot of marijuana cases right now right well this weed makes me feel this way and this weed makes me feel this way it's the same copywriting feeling yeah right so that means that like if you make chocolate and somebody else makes chocolate and both of them make someone feel a certain kind of way they can now sue you be an interesting documentary for you to make about just about this just explain just explain to people how it works what you did what the what the rules historically have been and what impact this this decision has on the history of music because if you I mean everything is rooted in something everything yeah that won't that won't hurt me that one set me back that one like that hurt well everyone was shocked by it of course anyone who knows about it who knows who understands the situation would be shocked by it because what you did was completely what has been done since the beginning of people making music yeah I mean can you imagine all the people who made Motown esque music everyone you know yes everybody that makes many in gay yes everybody that makes jazz yeah Oh without swinging hey this is interesting I never really made this connection before but I wonder if this in any way plays into the the new way our culture is looking back on material like I was at a dinner the other night and someone mentioned that Richard Pryor wouldn't be able to put out the material that he put out today and Richard Pryor was great you know one of the great all-time greats and I wonder if there's this like if the line of what's possible instead of it being this ever expanding growth of making more beautiful interesting things the powers that be may be very much like in the beginning bidding beginning days a hip-hop are trying to constrict that that opening of what's possible to share I mean there's a there's a yeah I think there's I think there's always that anyways I mean I think that's the country we live in that's the world we live in there's always a bunch of you know older folks who are and positions of power who don't think as progressively as the younger generation and seek to hold things and keep trying to keep things as yesterday when we already know it's already for tomorrow I mean I don't think that he could do that kind of I don't think that he could do it now I don't think Richard could do it now I think he's amazing he's demeans to go he's did like the greatest of all time to me yeah of all the time yeah but I don't think you could because the polls have shifted already and when the polls shift everything in the matrix it's just a new new it's a new color it's a new taste it's the new smells and new feeling and the rules change if you go back and look at half the commercials that were like out in the 70s like they are incredibly disrespectful to women like incredibly and so he made his jokes were created and at a time when the zeitgeist was progressive for that time mm-hmm but then when you look over your shoulder you realized that even in you know the need to progress was still so much super wrong I mean like LGBTQIA where they were like really not even allowed to exist with the exception of being mocked as man cross-dressing for a joke or cross-dressing for a show other than that that just didn't happen and they you know it was okay to call them names and be incredibly disrespectful to people's feelings that would never that will never fly but he I mean if you really know his life story like I mean he didn't have anything against anyone no and maybe and maybe he could have for that reason yeah but the language that he used was because it was pushing it for that time yes it was of the moment you can't you can't you can't take art out of the context in which it was made yeah an art is expression and the art of art you know the power of art but what gives art its pertinent is when people are pushing it yeah he would be pushing it in a completely different way work right now but but the world was a different place so he would be pushing it maybe in the same way but it would feel completely different in today's world because the world's different yeah so the context would change everything yes but he would it would be the same velocity yes of power the same degree probably just different jokes 100% yeah since since the blurred lines issue it's interesting I was even gonna bring it up but since since because we was talking about feeling yeah I know that's my dad I know that's what the universe is giving me funny thing is giving me is like the ability is to make things is to reverse-engineer a feeling make a tangible item so since what happened happened has it changed anything about the way you work no good this is the only way I know how to make great yeah that's great news yeah I just know I need to be incredibly when something feels super no matter if the chords are absolutely like they're jazz chords yeah and and what I am seeking to match the feeling in is like a tease power power band cool chords I still reach out hey you guys just want to be clear this feels the same to me yeah but it's not yeah yeah here's this here's this here's this here's this how do you feel about this you know just how those kinds of conversations if there's someone who's just like completely outlandish about something like alright I'm cool on you like whatever which never happens this was just like a freak situation absolutely that was meant to Humble me to teach me a lesson and I think that lesson was just be very clear and what my intentions are and to just not assume that everybody understands the difference the difference between rayon and silk yeah I'm a rayon yes he may sell yes sometimes you want rayon yeah depends what pens on the use yeah there's there's a reason rayon exists what's the most fun or exciting moment for you in the process when you make something and you're like yeah I gotta play this again you know only a couple times in my career I made something like that where me and my wife would just play it over and over and over going to ride and we'll look up and we've been driving for like 45 to an hour a couple times it's a great feeling oh my goodness yeah I love the moment when we're working in the studio patiently you know waiting for something to happen yeah and something goes from not so interesting to really interesting and not much changed yeah and it's like what just like what happened what just happened and it's a little scary that feeling of like didn't nobody move well it's very exciting and it's so it's so out of our control you know can't make that happen no it's just patience no I don't think we make we don't make much happen when it comes to creativity we're just we're just antennas and transistors yes we're speakers you know we're just lucky to get the transmission yeah when did your interest in fashion begin Oh ever since I realized I didn't have it and I was young and while other friends would come to class with like Jordans and all these are the things I would always say they and I I get those and I would like see those in green you know and so when given an opportunity I just started like doing it just because I was so appreciative to be able to do it do you see it as the same as making music making yeah yeah yeah same it's the same you're using the same same process yeah definitely using the same muscles anything else you'd be interested in applying those muscles to that you haven't yet well first of all like the one thing that's definitely on my mind before I leave is that we have to do something together you don't need me I definitely need you I'm not sure for what yet I don't know what you're working on but I mean I'm so down you're like we'll find something important to do together I would be so honored you talked about you and Chad starting together making music how would you say the process of making music has changed from before doing anything starting as a kid being a fan making music till now what's changed I guess being a family man you know more than more of a family man than I ever was I always said that I was gonna have like four kids I didn't know I was really gonna have four kids I always said it yeah and we went from one to four incredible that's the only difference I love music music is like music is the is the key that's open you know it's the skeleton key that's open every door for me including this one right here who knew on the other side of court structures that would make me emotional as a child would lead to this moment right here I go on the other side of listening to you know q-tip sample and Roy Ayers music productions daylight to make Benita alpha bum on the other side of my infatuation with that song and listening to it over and over again on repeat on the other side of that of those chords was the distance to this moment nothing's changed all built on music hundred percent the mountain of song it's crazy yeah yeah we're very lucky that this bit we get to play in this world so much yeah I mean I want this for everybody I want everybody to wake up every day going how did that how did this happen I love doing this I feel like I get paid for free so I'm doing what I love to do I want that for everybody this is this place is amazing this interview was you know awesome just so grateful so grateful for this opportunity to be able to sit with you and that's look I'm to me that's how awesome the universe is you know what I'm saying absolutely we are blessed I got a chance to sit and talk to you the unit like the universe were set out that way but you're doing one thing okay and you're also gonna sit down and have this conversation thank you for making the long journey out here they're trying to silence the voices of hip-hop

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Id: PnahkJevp64

Length: 47min 59sec (2879 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 04 2019