If you’ve ever wondered what it might be like working with a creative genius like Jay-Z, the answer is… odd.
“He’s an odd guy,” Pharrell tells Mark Ronson on The FADER Uncovered podcast this week.
“He’s not good because he’s just made good records, no, he’s really like a character.”
Pharrell reveals one of Jay-Z’s ‘odd’ quirks while working together in the past was to repeat bars back to him in falsetto, because that’s how he would think them up.
“If you ever spoke to him, have a conversation with him, it’s not a regular conversation,” he says.
“Or when he writes and he’s just sitting there mumbling to himself, in falsetto, by the way.”
Pharrell mimicks Jay-Z’s falsetto rap about halfway (20:52) through the chat.
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Using their collaboration, ‘I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)’ as his example, Williams says, “When he writes a rhyme, he doesn’t go, ‘When the Remy’s in the…’ He doesn’t do that, he goes, ‘Yo, yo, when the Remy’s in the system, ain’t no tellin’ will I fuck him, will I diss him, that’s what they yellin’ I’m a pimp by blood’.”
“And he taps you on the shoulder and takes it back again. He writes in falsetto. That’s odd and different and weird and amazing and makes him a character.”
Pharrell admits he doesn’t know why Jay-Z did what he does.
“I got to ask him why he does that,” he said.
“I don’t know why he does it, but that he’s always done that.”
Jay-Z, who earlier this year said he wants to be remembered “like Bob Marley and all the greats,” is now the most Grammy-nominated artist of all time.
His three 2022 nominations, for guest appearances with Kanye West and DMX, pushed him past previous record holder Quincy Jones, who has had 80 nominations.
Jay-Z now has 83 nominations and 23 Grammy wins to his name.
Listen to Pharrell Williams on The FADER Uncovered podcast here:
