Pharrell Williams

00:00:08 Speaker 1: Pushkin. Just a quick note here. You can listen to all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist, which you can find a link to in the show notes for licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect all right. Enjoy the episode. Most noe Pharrell Williams from his hit song Happy, or for producing an appearing in the video for Robin Dick's Blurred Lines, or for the resulting lawsuit brought by Marvin Gay's estate for copyright infringement, or for being a judge on NBC's The Voice, or for his work in fashion with his lines Billionaire Boys Club and ice Cream and partnerships with Adidas and Chanel. The point is that Farrell is one of the rare, effortless multi hyphenants, and he's everywhere. A stat's been thrown around for years that Farrell, along with his Neptunes producing partner Chad Hugo, was responsible for forty three percent of music played on US radio by two thousand and three. It's hard to say if that's true or not, but you could have told me it was fifty percent, and I'd have believed you. And Farrell's not done yet. In the last couple weeks alone, he's launched a number of ventures. A Netflix show Voices of Fire, where he attempts to assemble the gospel world's best choir, a newly launched skincare line Human Race because you can also add Flawless Skin to his list of unique gifts, end a podcasting company Other Tone Media. Rick Rubin connected with Farrell over zoom this past weekend to talk through and listen to some of the biggest hits of his illustrious career, and also to check in on what music he's working on right now. This is broken record liner notes for the Digital Age. I'm justin Richmonton. Here's Rick Rubin and Forrell Williams. What are you working on right now? Rihanna ty Dolla sign the singer songwriter Chris cab Rosalia. Great, yeah, some blank Wantity two coming. Nice. It's been a minute for Rihanna. No, yeah, it's been a minute. Have you cracked the code of what it's going to be? Oh? Yeah, it's really it's really her at the end of the day, what she wants. But I just you know, I just sound wise. I was trying to just like make something that like looks and feels like she does. So when you work with her, visit will a track start the conversation and then a song get written? Typically? How would that work? It's really like she talks about what she wants to feel, and then it's my job to reverse engineer that. So you try to get the feeling into the music first before there's a song, or might there be a song first? No, it's a feeling first. Yeah, when working with her, it's a feeling. It's like we're reverse engineering that feeling and trying to turn that into something. And does it typically does it happen relatively quickly or might it take some time? Uh? You just kind of dive in and go go for it. So it's that's not that doesn't really take too long to crack. You know, because you because you're you, you have coordinates, you know, you know where you're going, you know what you're looking for, and you'll know when you're there. And as soon as you get the feeling right, what's the process for that to turn into a song for her? We got like the right writers for like the right kind of tone and myself, so we kind of like just really wrestle and grapple until we feel like we're like really hitting that specific note and would it would it be might lyrics come first or would it be more sensi melody or might it be the hook? Or is there any order typically or no odds the melody? It's the melody. And then then we kind of like listen to what the melody is saying it wants to say, and might you do like Scott versions of the melody and just see if any words fall into place? Sometimes and then other times it's like if some words do come out, then in the places where there are no words, you kind of take the emotion of what you're trying to communicate and you find the words and you kind of do a mosaic lyrically. Are you in Miami now? Yes, sir? Cool? How long have you lived in Miami? Miami? Probably, like you know, for like fifteen years, with like a four year four and a half year break, and that's when we were in LA. Probably wanted the toughest times in my life the time in La. Yeah, why do you think? Because LA is limitless access? You know, it's a lot and when your whole family is out there, you know, it's just a lot. There's a lot going on, and it's like life by appointment. It's kind of like a different life style, you know, than what we were accustomed to growing up. And you know, you just want your kids to understand that life is not like that outside of Los Angeles city limits. You know, would you say Miami is closer to your experience of growing up. Yeah, it's much more like reality, I think anything outside of Los Angeles if you're not born there. Yeah, you know, it's a very different thing. It's just a different, amazing but different world. Yeah. It feels like people go there to work and they live on the side, but they're there basically to work. Or I guess pretty much anywhere else you live and you go to work when you go to work, but when you're not going to work, you live in la is kind of like the work. Yes, I agree with that. Yeah, tell me about growing up in Virginia a little bit. I know, it's very little about Virginia is a different it's a different pace. It's like you know, normal town in the USA. It's humid, which I appreciate, uh creatively, it's like it's in the air. It just was a it can just be slow at times. It is, you know, one of the first it's you know, one of the first thirteen states, so it has a lot of that residual energy there. Virginia is very parallel in my mind conceptually to America. I love it because of its progression, but I'm in love with it because of its untapped potential. That being said, there's a whole lot of you know, heaviness that come with it. Yeah, but from the heaviness, can that's where the great things can blossom? Well, yeah, that's how we made Grind it. That's how we made a lot of songs because it was a pressure that stairs there. That pressure is really there. You know, the law really comes down on black people differently. Yeah, it really does. You know, with the plight of the African American and African diaspora in Virginia is a lot heavier. The gravity on us, you know, two to three times more heavier. Should we listen to Grinding and talk about it? Yeah? Cool with that, Let's do it. Yeah. I feel like today it'd be really fun to listen to a bunch of records that you made and just see what listening to them brings up to be fun to hear, very cool. Describe the room that you made that record in. I May it was in Chad's in Chad's room. He had just bought a house, and you know, found those sounds on the triton And while it sounds together now, it just at the time it was just like a bunch of like African sounds and it just felt primal, you know, just all the sounds felt primal, and the sounds just felt like it felt like the last laugh of the enslaved spirit. And while it was not the last laugh, it just made us all feel that way. We knew that that was something that could only have come from us, and it connected to us all on a primal level. You know. So while there was hustlers in the street, you know, doing doing illegal things, but trying to survive the best way that they felt like they could. And while we were as as kids, we were inspired by that attitude. Again, it may not be in the most healthiest attitude, but we are inspired by We're inspired by them grabbing the ball by the horns and sort of just like taking themselves on their own ride. I don't know, we were trying to reverse the engineer that notion you know of just like controlling your own destiny, even if it wasn't even the right necessarily the right direction that the song was kind of like the soundtrack to that spirit. Did the vocals happen the same day that the track Cat made? I remember calling pushed it like yo, you gotta come over here, like we just made it beat like this is one of the ones. You know. I knew it was alien, yeah, because it was African and it was you know, it was African sounds and it wasn't using typical like eight o weights and it wasn't you know, it wasn't doing what everything else was doing back man. Yeah, it was just this the thing where you were like, wait, what's going on? And was he inspired as soon as he heard it? Yeah? Him and him and his brother yeo. Would you ever when you finish your track in the studio, bring to a club and plate in the clubs here what it feels like in the club. I never did that. I don't know. I didn't know if anyone would care. You know a lot of times, like where we're from, like they don't want to really hear. And I knew in the club until like the it's the ship you know, so like us going in there at that time, it's like, oh, here he come. You know what I'm saying. I would never do that. When you played it for your friends, would they positive about it? Yeah? And I knew, like, you know, a lot of them were like hustlers at the time, so I knew like if it worked for them, then we were doing something right. Did you have any musical mentors when you were in Virginia? I mean only Teddy at the time. Tell me about that. You know, he was a mentor to us while we were there working, you know, in his studio, but other than that, you know, once we kind of like went out on our own. We kind of didn't have anybody else to bounce things off of Virginia because it wasn't like a big music scene there at the time. Yeah. And how established was Teddy at that point in time when you were just starting Teddy was you know, he was a king. I mean he had just done like dangerous you know remember the time. I mean, Teddy was in my mind, you know, in a lot of people's mind still as the king. Yeah, Teddy's amazing. What was it like, you know, being a kid and being in the room and watching what he was doing, did you feel like he's great or did you feel like, oh, I think I can do this. I was just in awe and I couldn't believe my life. I couldn't believe I got to be in a room where I got to learn the codes to how you make me because other than that, when you're a kid, you just think, okay, people are in the studio. Yeah, but you don't know what that means. You know, to you, it's just like a song. It's like all your life you've been eating like loaves of bread, never ever ever considered you know the amount of flour and how you know what the temperature is and to cook it, and you know what it takes to package it, and you know its shelf life and what's going to look like on a truck, and like, you don't consider those in tegral details that all must work in concert to deliver a consistent experience for you every time you interact with it. So being there with him was kind of like being in the kitchen. Had Teddy not been in Virginia, I wouldn't be here. Wow, I wouldn't be talking to you. You know, it's all cause and effect and Teddy is absolutely the initial He's one of the causes to this effect. Yeah, tell me about the formation of the Neptunes. I met Chad when I was in the beginning band. I was like thirteen, and he played saxophone. I played drums, and I moved away from that area, and then we met up again at this school called Old Donation Center for the Gifted and Talented, and I went there for jazz in the summer man and he ended up there, and he was like a phenomenal player by that time. And I was like a decent drummer, you know, I could play anything, and he beat on a drum set. But Chad was like prolific with piano, and he was an amazing sax player, and he just picked up anything, and he just always wanted to learn, and so like you know, we were talking. He was like, yeah, you know, I got like keyboards at my house. Like he's to come by some time or whatever. So eventually, like my mom would bring me over there, and sometimes I could catch rides over there or whatever, and we were just like for two three hours. We would just like make beats on his like cassio keyboards, you know. Then like one of our homeboys that I went to school with, this kid Mike. He could sing, and Shaye was like, you know, she's my best friends. So say Mike and myself we would go over to Chad's house and then we would just like make demos and we weren't really we didn't even know they were demos until like, you know, a year or two into and realized, oh, we're making a demo. And then we like, you know, we had a series of like short lived management arrangements and then eventually we got to Teddy. And when we got to Teddy, he discovered us in a high school talent show through you know, this guy Omar Chandler and then also Tammy Lucas, who was the one that said to Teddy, you need to pay attention to these guys. And so he asked me to come to the studio and when he did, he gave me a shot to to write on something that ended up being a rump Shaker. So I wrote his verse for it. And at the time we as a group, we were called the Neptunes, and then we had like one record deal. We were signing to Michael Jackson's label MJJ. So the Neptune started as a performance group, as a as an artist, not as a producing group. Yeah, we we were just artists, but we could also like make beats and shiite and so like. Because he had us produced a song called Tonight's Tonight on the first Black Street album, and then we eventually did use Your Heart and Win This Feeling for as WV and then we did when Boy Meets Girl for Total and so we just started producing all these songs. And then eventually because we kept trying to get a record deal the entire time while we were producing songs, but like I was so fucking crazy and like out of my mind with like my style and the way that I dressed, the record company was like who are you? You're weird, Get the funk out of here. You got just stick to making music. And I was like, all right, fuck it. So then we uh, you know, my my manager introduced us to Kalie. We met Calice and we started like producing it for her, did an album for her over at Virgin, and then Virgin was like, man, you guys should also make an album too, and we were like all right. At that time, I was like I don't think that we should be we should use the same name we used, which was originally our group name that had now become a production name, which is me and Chat. We should just be an RD. So the Neptunes in the very beginning was us as a group, and then we just continue to produce. Did you ever play live as the Neptunes? Yeah? It was a disaster. Was it a fond memory disaster? No? Disaster. I don't like myself anyways. When I look back at myself ten years ago, I'm like, I'm a dude, Why did I do that? Why am I saying that? Why am I dressed like that? Oh? My goodness? I mean that is I'm just one of those types of aries, you know, I'm never really pleased with what I've done ten years ago, and completely don't even want to think about what I where I was at twenty years ago. So there you have it. So, if you were to go back in time, would you make the music that you made then different than you made it then? No, because I understand that that is the reason where I am now. I am ever so grateful that people give me the opportunity to be as left of center as I am at times, and you know, just take those shots at the time because you know, as aries were impulsive. But then when you're impulsive, you got to be able to live with those, you know, those impulses. And sometimes I can and other times I can't. But that's okay, because that's why I constantly like to move forward. In the cases in those days when Neptunes was a production group pre n r D, would you just make tracks and then find homes for them, or would it be more of a case of an artist wants to make a record and then you're making something targeted in mind with that artist in mind. Both so there might be songs that would have been Neptune songs that might have been had you signed a deal, they would have been on your record, but then they ended up being on someone else's record because you didn't have a record deal. Yeah. Sure, And there are times, you know it's still up to this day, I'll do something for someone and they're like, it doesn't make sense to me, and you know, someone else here's and it goes man, that's for me, and I go okay, cool. And then there's also times where like that song would come out and the original artist would be like, man, why don't you make me something like that? And it's like I did. Yeah. Yeah, that's because sometimes people are not hearing what you're hearing. Absolutely, Like when you watch somebody like making something and you don't know what they're doing or where they're going, and you just like don't get it, and then all of a sudden they do one thing and it just go, oh, you go get it now. Music the same way. What would be a song if you were to pick a song from that pre n R D era for us to listen to, what would be one that you that would feel good to listen to? I don't remember not one single song. Really, I don't, Man, I don't a lot of times I don't remember my songs. I understand. I'm such a where are we going now? Kind of person? Yeah, I really don't going into the past. I'm really not so good at that. So my way of curating, you know, Like that's why I'm like like not a good DJ. Like I'm never DJ to my life, like really like like really, yeah, Now, if you ask me a bunch of songs that I think make me feel amazing, I'll rattle off a bunch of them. But Q Tip is amazing. It's an amazing DJ because he can do all of the above, whereas like I am literally I don't know how to do that. Yeah, it's a particular skill set. I feel like also quest love like when he I just love listening to music. When he programs, it blows my mind. That guy forget it. Of course, this is amazing. We'll be right back with more from Farrell and Rick after the break, we're back with more of Rick's conversation with Pharrell. Tell me about your experience with Dat pump Man. They really are I mean, like they're amazing people, you know, and they really just love music in a different kind of way. And it's interesting that we know them as robots because they have a lot of feeling, but their level of execution is very algorithmic. Like I would compare them to like AI. Wow. Cool, let's listen. Let's listen to Get Lucky. Tell me what you remember about the making of that man. We were obviously in France. I remember being super jet lagged. So Gimon had this stuff called Gronson and it's like what you take when you're like jet lagged. It's like you put it in water. It's kind of like alka seltzer. Is it a herb? Or is it a pharmaceutical. No, it's like a over the counter. It's just like in France, kind of like five hours or something like that. He was like, here this, you'll be fine. He put that ship in the water. I drink it, and I was like, like the legend of the Phoenix, and what the fuck was I talking about? Man? Like the legend of the Phoenix all ends with beginnings. What keeps the planet spinning? The foursome the beginning pretty great. I was like, oh, holy shit, it was a session, man. We did that and we didn't lose yourself to dance. We did both of those songs. I thought I was writing it for somebody else. I could have swore that was a conversation. Do you know those guys you know you finished the session and it's over, and you know you don't speak to them again. For like, it might have been like six months that we heard from them, but I didn't hear it until like a year. I think I heard from them like, oh, yeah, you know, you know we're gonna keep you on a song. I was like, keep me on a song, like I thought it was for someone else, And then I didn't hear it until it was mixed. And I was. I was blown away. Yeah, I really was. That's nice. That must be a nice experience because usually you're so hands on with the things you make, so to have someone else make it and have it be that good, it's gotta be a great feeling. I was incredibly honored. You know, those guys are the best at what they do. Beautiful that that said. As good as the track is, the vocal melodies, the words, the catchiness of the hook, I don't know that that that we would know that track if it was not for the for what the vocals doing. So excellent work. Thank you. Tell me about your experience with Beck. Beck is another prolific genius and his fans know, but more people should know how genius that man is. That's a genius guy. Absolutely, that guy's a treasure. Yeah. I mean the way that he writes, the way that he thinks, the ship that he wants to do. You know, people say genre bending. Beck is just like he literally just considers music to be music, and you just cannot. I mean, the guy did new pollution. That's it, that's nothing, that's nothing else to talk about. The guy did new pollution. Have you heard new pollution? Have you fucking heard New Pollution. It's incredible. What the fuck? And his folk songs are incredible. You know, his acoustic folk songs are brilliant. He is a genius. Period we were this last album, Hyperspace. We worked on that album for seven years. Seven years? Did it did it evolve over the seven years or was it clear what it was going to be from the beginning and it just took seven years to get there. I don't I have no idea. I don't know how he works, man, I don't know. I know I spent like, there's like four years. I'm like, what are we doing? We got four songs, put it on the record. What are we doing? Yeah? He's like, no, not yet. We get together again, and then like I don't know what comes up that. Then we get together again, get a couple of songs, and then we get together again. And after that, this is like seven years and then you just hear the whole masterpiece and I'm just looking at this guy going wow. And he got some of my best ship from me at that time. So he's just just like cherry picking. It's like, you know, okay, froll, just you know, come over, let's work. I'm going to sift through your you know, you're a contemporary vineyard of inspiration. I'll take these grapes. I'll take those grapes and see you later, Farrell. I'll catch you, like, no, don't worry, I don't, I don't worry. You know. A couple of years later, it's like wine, small fuckers, like a small air or some shit. It's like, okay, it's going to rain, Frell, come by, bring the vineyards. Okay, Okay, these are choice grapes. This will be nice for a white white. Nope, you know what. These are better for a cabinet. And then you look up and ship and then like you guys are nominated for a fucking Grammy seven years later, I mean, cheers to that genius. Yeah. I remember I got a copy of Morning Phase early before it came out, and and I remember being told, you know, this is kind of and this is not his next album after this is the big album. This isn't the big This is just like something he's working on, like this is like personal thing. And I listened to it and it was the best album maybe that I've heard in I don't know five years. Like as I called him up right away It's like, this is not an in between album. This is not a small album. This is masterful. He's that bro. Yeah, let's listen to love his chemical just fun. Oh wow, credible. It's a good sign of everything we've listened to that made you smile the most. It's a really good sign because you know what, there's like, no, there's nothing on it except just pure like that guy's just free. Man. Yeah, you know, and I want everybody like that. You can feel it, you can feel it. So tell me what was it that he What was it that you gave him to start from that ended up there? Music? Yeah, the music and like melodies and some songs I wrote lyrics on as well along with melodies. He just knows, you know. I would just play him shit and he just would know, like, okay, yeah, let's go there. You know that's like a dream. It's just so beautiful, so beautiful. Thank you. I'm honored, I really am. Man. You know the crazy thing I'm talking to Rick Rubin right now. I remember Rock the Bells. I told you this before, but I remember Rock the Bells as a child. You know, when people were saying like who's cool or like lll or or cool mood and you had done a lot of ll and all the stuff on Death Cham. I remember seeing your name on those on those like cassettes, and I'm like actually talking to you right now, and you're like actually fucking curious about anything that has to do with me and U Chad Hugo, and I just gotta say, like, you know, life is crazy, right because you know, things can be so great, and at the same time, we're always reminded that just next door it can be it can be misfortune next door. And that's been one of the hardest things for me because every time I slip and allow myself to get too happy, I'm reminded that on the other side of fortune is misfortune. Absolutely. I just you know, this is like a pinch yourself moment. But just like you know, listening to that song and feeling that way about that music and then going a shit, I'm up here talking to Rick Rubin about music and he actually cares about what I think. Like I'm not I'm not Kanye, I'm not Stevie Wonder or you know, Joni Mitchell or you know Michael I'm not any of those like really super legendary people. I'm from Virginia Beach, Virginia. All the people you mentioned are just people who are from where they're from, who love music and shared the best of themselves with us and enriched our lives and inspired us to want to do the same thing. It's it's very much of a community of like minded people who are all contributing something. We get something from it. It turns us on, it excites us, and then we find our way in and you know, if we're lucky, we get to participate. But it's it's all beyond us. It's beyond it's beyond you, it's beyond me, it's beyond all the people you mentioned. What's coming through is much bigger. We're just blessed that we get to participate it. And it comes from love, you know, That's where it is. It's like the love is the connection that allows it to come through. Still honored to be a part of you know, honored to be a Comma and one tiny sentence in the and the Great Book of Music. Same on that note, let's listen to drop it like it's hot. Yes, sir, you remember the first time you heard him sing the hook that way? Yeah, we were in the studio and he was in there. You know, Snoop is tall. Snoop is like six foot like I don't know, or three four or something like that. He was in the studio with no less than fifteen dudes that were all as tall as him, and then he had these two security guys that were absolutely north of seven foot. You know, they were smoking. Have you ever been like in like New York, like when the fog is there and you're like in a skyscraper and you literally can see like where the fog starts. Yes, that's what it was like being in the room with all those dudes, just a layer of smoke in the sky. It was a layer of smoke that you just would never believe. It was unbelievable. You stood up, you were gonna be high for a week contact wise, and was making the Beatum. I did my verse. He was like, pee, say we got one. We knew it was we knew it was special. I loved Let's get blown. Let's Get Blown was just like such a zone to me, Like it was just so like what is that? You know? We were so inspired by Steve Arrington and the label was like we're gonna put that out, but now now you're tripping, We're gonna come with dropper like a side and I was like, all right, cool, And that's the same thing happened with Beautiful. Right. We made From the Church to the Palace and I was like, oh man, I love Church to the Palace. They were like, yeah, that's cool, but this record beautiful and I was like, yeah, but I'm on there sounding like a sick billy goat and they were like, because, by the way, still to this day, I think the cook too Beautiful is detuned. I think when I or out of tune, yea, I think I'm about it sooom. I think I'm pitchy. I think I'm flat. But I don't know why people fuck with it. Let's listen. Let's listen to it. Let's listen to that beautiful. Yeah. What's cool about hip hop is that if you are singing a little out of tune, it's hip hop. Aka I was, But I feel like sometimes when I hear it tuny vocals in hip hop, it feels more like hip hop music than you know, like a slick hook on a rap track. Yeah, it's true. I mean, it's just it just gives it more like a little bit more personality and it just feels a little bit more like real and authentic to whatever the person was trying to express, just like you appreciate that person being a little flat because they mean it. Yeah, it feels like it's a moment in time. You know that you believe that it's really happening. Yeah, I'm meant it. But I never thought that record would do what it did. Typically, when you're when you're making something new, you go into the studio, you have an idea to start something new. Might you be influenced by something that you heard recently, might be influenced by something that you can remember from childhood, or is it more of a clean slate. I love that which doesn't exist. That's like my favorite. And then there are times where you just like you go, oh, man, I love the feeling of that. I don't want that sound, but I love that feeling. You know what I'm saying. Let me let me how do I reverse engineer that feeling? And in their moments where you go, man, I love that, I love that like groove, but what if it was in a It's like I love that groove aka Silhouette, But what if it was like with all complete different chords of colors, you know what I mean. Yeah, it's just it just depends. Sometimes it's just left the center, like dropping like it's high, and then other times it's like, man, I love the feeling that I felt when I when I hurt, busting loose as a kid, you know. So then we try to reverse the engineer that energy and and and we make cotton here. It's like if you're playing back to back, you realize it's like really completely different, but the feeling, you know. So it's almost like you hear a song and you imagine if that song was a whole genre of music, what would the other songs in that genre sound like. That's exactly right, the brother of it, the cousin of it. You know. It's like Mario and Warrio. You know, there's Mario and then there's his evil you know, there's the evil version of Mario, which is Warrio. And that's what I like to do. I find sometimes that's a great starting point. And sometimes during the process of looking for the thing like it, you end up going somewhere completely different that was unexpected, and you just get surprised. You know. Yeah, you just have to keep chasing. We'll be right back with Farrell. After this quick break, here's the rest of Rick's conversation with Pharrell Williams. Can you remember the last thing that you heard where that you didn't make, that you just heard and your mind was blown, like just like this is unbelievable. Thundercat them changes and it just hit you right away first time. It's just like h Scott Venner played me that song and I said, what in the fuck? And we played it? He played it, I played it. I made him play that ship over and over again, like maybe twenty times. I could not believe what I was feeling. Such a great feeling, isn't it? Oh my goodness? I was like, what is this? Kim Burrell's you know, Holy Ghost, that's really unbelievable. I mean, She's just unbelievable. Don Tolliver's no idea, Wow, what the hell? And then when I was a kid, there was like just a thousand of them that just would blow my brains as out, like blow my heart out, blow my organs out, blow my existence out of my body, like the systems don't Disturb, Discroove or Beach Boys, sail On Sailor or Benita Apple bomb by trip call quests, or many repretends the reasons or Donny Hathaways take a love song Lady in My Life, Michael Jackson, Johnny Mitchell, Don't it always seemed to go that you don't know what you got to list on? When she also sings help me Johnny Mitchell helped me. When you would hear one of those records, how often put you listen to it over and over and over and over and over and over again. I listened to him Benita apple Bomb. I would have it on a loop for like an hour straight. When I was I was really young, I listened to that song over and over again because I could not understand why it made me feel that way. And then I realized that those were the chords, and I realized that, you know, while that song was from Roy Air's musical production, a song called Daylight, the whole song was that I loved it because it was doing what bridges typically did, progression chord progression wise. So if you listen to the Roy Air song that inspired it or that it was based on, would that have the same effect on you or not? Necessarily it did. It did because the chords were the saying. But I, of course I loved the Tribe version. You know, you to pick the best pocket in a Footprints another one? Can you just play that song real quick? Tribe called Footprints Really fun listening to that with you, and I just learned something about hip hop just now just listening to that. In the days of hip hop being based on a sample like this is, the sample's picked and then additional tracks are put in to reinforce the sound, and then sometimes the sample goes away and then we're only left with the new stuff and sometimes so the sample works in different ways. But it's almost like we learn more about the original song through this hip hop record, because it's like we've taken this piece of music and put it in an X ray machine and we get to see the different layers of it and the DNA of it, and we examine it in a way that doesn't get to happen when we just listen to the original in its original holistic version. There's a unity and balance that gets upset in the hip hop process to create something new, and we get to learn so much through this process. It's amazing. I never really realized that for just now listening with you, that is called tripical quests that's what that's what they that's what they do. They make you listen to music, and they teach you how they hear music. They teach you how to appreciate something that you might have just skipped over because it was only four bars or two bars and something and you never got to hear it again, or it just came like two or three times in the song, but that wasn't where the hook was, and so you ignored it. They go, no, no, no, no, this part right here, and like you said, you walk away going, well, what is that sample? And then you go back and listen to that record. It's like you listen to it and you appreciate it very differently, and then you go, wow, they heard that part. And I don't never forget. When I blah because I got the album because of Beneath Apple Bump, I was like, man, I don't give a shit if the rest of the album is trash, that's all I want to hear. Man. When I got that album and listen from the top, first song is good, second song is good, third songs good. And then that song came on and I was and I'm telling you, the other songs are good. Yeah, you know, the luck of Lucienne, like push it Along. All those songs are great. When Footprints came in, I remember thinking to myself, first of all, those chords are nocturnal. I don't see sunshine when I hear that. So that was the first thing that blew my mind. I was like, oh shit, I'm listening to this song and they have looped up something that makes me think of nighttime. Some certain songs, the chords make me think of, you know, four or five in the morning, right when the sun is coming up and it's kind of blue outside, it's not quite sunny yet, and it's coming out of night it's coming out of nighttime. It's like that, you know, four fifty to six o'clock time. And then there's the same thing that happens in the evening. When I heard Footprints, it felt like eleven o'clock at night, full moon, concord blue, there's some purple in there, and like the beigeness of the moon. That's what That's what I heard. And I heard that on Loop and that was like alchemy to me, and I just was like, what the fuck is this? Like, Okay, my friends are obsessed with like sports and football players and like basketball players and Jordan is amazing and we love the sneakers. This track, though, it's made me think of nighttime. And every time this sample comes in, which I didn't know what's called a sample at the time, but every time that loop came in, I was like, it makes me think of nighttime? What the fuck is this? Like? What's going on? And then when I heard beneath Albabam, that was like time to me, and it was kind of blue with like pinks in it, and I'd start like, Wow, Okay, this is crazy this music. This is like rap music that's making me think of colors, the way that, like Stevie wondered, music may makes me think of colors. I had never experienced that before. Would you listen in your room or would you listen outside walking around? Where where paint the picture of what the scene looked like? Sometimes I would like listen to my listening to my room, when other times I would go and sitting in my parents' car when it was raining and listen but with my headphones because I liked being in the rain. That's the other thing too, Rain is like everything for me. I was always obsessed with rain as a kid, That's how we ended up being called the Neptune's Water. What was the first time you got to see music live? I was like five years old. I don't remember this, but it was a story. We went to King's Dominion, which is like this Dame Park and we I guess they lost me somehow and they found me. I was over dancing to Kenny Rogers, good singer, pretty crazy. What's the first one you remember? Oh, Eric being rock Kim at Da Hampton Colliseam And how was that amazing? Rock? Him was every thing I mean lyrically that God, the stuff that he would say, and where he was coming from, and his tone and his rhythm, and that was all crazy for me. Anything else you feel like would be helpful for us to talk about, I don't know. I think I'm in a state of like gratitude at the moment. Beautiful, you know. And that's a constant exercise. It's a constant exercise. The best exercises one could do mind, body, and soul, because there's a lot of physical exercises that you can do, but they're not necessarily they required the mental, but they may not be as spiritual. But these are three spiritual exercises three mental and physical exercises, which is gratitude, empathy, and humility. And you know, talking to you right now and just when you asked me to go back, when you ask me about these songs or music or whatever. What it does is it transports you back in time and you remember who you were and what was going on and what was your reality. And so it's just humbling when you fast forward back to where you are now. It's like, oh shit, man, so much has happened, and I'm just I guess I'm just ever so grateful. You know, God was so patient with me. I wasn't on it like I needed to be. How much of you now is the same kid listening to Tribe on the headphones. I mean you just saw it. I mean Footprints just took me right back, you know, to be in fifteen sixteen or whatever I was at whatever age I was at that time. Yeah, music has that incredible transformative power to change everything. I can remember when I was a kid and really didn't feel connected to anything. The first time I really felt connected to anything, it was music. It's so magical. It's so crazy. Man, We're living in a different time where like these ethereal connections that we have to various points in our lives and various points of our personality feel more effervescent than they ever have before. I don't know if that's because the Internet is alive now well because we just are where we are culturally. You know, we're in the age of Aquarius, so everything is up in the air. So I just it's crazy because I could feel it. Yeah, I think we were lucky to grow up when we did. I agree. I want to ask you about one one more thing because it speaks something you said earlier about about listening to the Tribe album and how it made you feel. And it feels like the relationship people's relationship to music has changed, and the album as a format seems less, i want to say, less relevant than it used to. And if you could speak a bit to the feeling of the album as a thing, the idea of the container of the album when we were younger was a key feature of it. Like you said, you bought the album for one song, hoping the rest of it would be good. But if the rest of it wasn't good, that might happen. And you remember the ones where it was one song that got you to buy it, but the whole album was good, that changed your life. Yeah, I don't know that people have that experience as much today. Well, because there's more of a democracy and you're not forced to buy a whole bunch of things that you don't know anything about. You can try things, you know. Do you think there's something being missed though by not getting to get that experience of you know, Dark Side of the Moon as a body of work. Well, that was Pink Floyd and Dark Side of the Moon. Right, if every album was at I think the argument would stand. But because every album is not, and because the point of vitry is so wide for so many people to come in and make music. What is a beautiful thing is that you got a lot of one hit wonders and you can sometimes you got two hit Wonders, three hit Wonders or one album. But like, it's not like it used to be because the point of entry is so wide. So I don't know that, you know, unless you're getting two thousand Pink Floyds, then it probably is good at Its just way that people get a chance to just taste tests until they feel like they've figured out who makes a great meal. And then versus who makes a good side dish. I still find myself if I hear something that I haven't heard before, whether it be new or old, I usually want to go deeper and listen to everything the artist was doing in that period and try to get a sense of beyond the song, who they are, where they are, where, where it comes from. That's not a bad thing. You should continue to do that, but it doesn't always deliver, and that's because there's so much. Yeah, it's endless. It can't all be good. It definitely. All can't be great. Absolutely, On the other side, they can't all be bad, right, but it but one thing that it is is all and because you're dealing with all, you're gonna want to taste tests absolutely, And I do love the ability to anything I think of be able to call it up and listen to it on demand versus you know, having to wait for it. It's really nice being able to find all music all the time. It's a great way to listen. So it's like a dream growing up in a place the way we did to now get to this place where it's literally all music on demand at all times. It's a miracle. Yeah, it's beautiful to see and experience. Cool Man. I love you, Blessings, my brother be blessed, and most importantly, be a blessing. Thanks to for Herrell for taking time out of his studio work to chat and reminisce with Rick. You can hear all of Horrell's favorite songs that he mentioned on a playlist at broken Record podcast dot com. Plus to listen to some of his favorite hits that he sent Rick just before the interview. Be sure to suscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcasts. There you can find extended cuts of new and old episodes. Broken Record is produced with help from Lea Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, and is executive produced by MIO Label. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries, and if you like our show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast at our team. Music is by Kenny Beats. I'm Jessin Richmond bass