How Pharrell Reinvented Himself As a Soundtrack King

In the later stage of his career, legendary producer and artist Pharrell found success working on movie soundtracks, like 'Hidden Figures.'

pharrell despicable me 3 premiere
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Image via Getty/Tara Ziemba

pharrell despicable me 3 premiere

It took Pharrell Williams 10 tries to get it just right. The producer was scoring an important scene from the 2013 animated film Despicable Me 2, in which the love-struck main character Gru dances through the streets in a display of uncharacteristic joy. P’s mission was to express that ecstasy via song. After nine swings and misses—completed songs that were sent back to the drawing board—the musical genius tapped into the rawest emotion of elation, channeled soul icon Curtis Mayfield, and 20 minutes later “Happy,” the most important track of his solo career, was born.

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“It would have never happened if the studio wouldn't have kept telling me, ‘No, it’s not good enough,’" Pharrell told NPR of his 2013 megahit, which sat at No. 1 on the pop charts for 10 weeks, and has been certified seven times Platinum by the RIAA. The joie de vivre anthem represents the peak of Pharrell’s artistic revival as a producer for movies, a journey on which he embarked nearly a decade ago.

Of course a guy who connects sound with visuals on a neurological level—Pharrell, who returns to serve on the host committee of this year's ComplexCon, has identified himself as a person who experiences synesthesia—would gravitate toward creating for film. Around the end of the ’00s, when the pop ubiquity that the Neptunes experienced during the turn of the century had started to diminish, Pharrell began to shift from Skateboard P to Clapperboard P. After helping to curate the soundtrack for The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift in 2006, he took a more hands-on role as executive producer of 2009’s Fast & Furious soundtrack. The Neptunes produced six of 10 songs on the latter release; Pharrell appears alongside Pitbull on the project’s lead single “Blanco.”

Pharrell’s work with the Fast & Furious franchise opened doors for him to collaborate with legendary composer Hans Zimmer on the score and soundtrack to 2010’s Despicable Me. He tapped into his pessimistic side for the glum titular track and got into character with Lupe Fiasco for the mischievous “Minion Mambo,” quite the artistic veering from Clipse’s Til the Casket Drops one year earlier. Pharrell described the experience as freeing, telling the Huffington Post that his contributions to the movie leaked into N.E.R.D.’s 2010 album Nothing:

“Working on Despicable Me expanded my mind... Seeing posters on [Hans Zimmer’s] wall of spaghetti westerns, made me think. I thought of Ennio Morricone’s sound, and wanted that to [blend] with N.E.R.D and it went from there. It ends up sounding very Doors, America, Crosby, Stills, & Nash and Neil Young influenced. There’s a bit of Queen. I have to consider the world and not one small party of people.”

Three years later, Pharrell was back to business with Despicable Me 2. “Happy” became such a smash that it spurred the creation of P’s outstanding sophomore solo album, Girl, serving as the lead single. He also performed two new songs on the movie’s soundtrack and wrote “Scream” for CeeLo Green (who was originally intended to record “Happy”). Pharrell later signed on to co-compose 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 as part of a super sound squad dubbed the Magnificent Six, which also included Incubus’ Mike Einziger, The Smiths’ guitarist Johnny Marr, electronic DJ and producer Junkie XL, and composers Andrew Kawczynski and Steve Mazzaro. The soundtrack includes the rousing “It’s On Again,” featuring Kendrick Lamar and Alicia Keys; Pharrell has become a frequent collaborator to both.

While Pharrell continues to push music forward in non-cinematic realms, his on-screen and soundtrack work is thankfully showing no signs of slowing down. As one of the producers of last year’s acclaimed film Hidden Figures, he oversaw all of the movie’s musical elements. Meanwhile, this summer’s blockbuster Despicable Me 3 features several contributions from Pharrell (including the jubilant “Yellow Light”).

Next up, Pharrell is co-producing a musical about his childhood called Atlantis, which according to The Hollywood Reporter, has been described as a “Romeo & Juliet-style love story with a music element.” It seems to be another opportunity for P to set his brilliant melodies to motion picture. In a 2010 interview, Pharrell shared a fitting metaphor to convey how scoring has expanded his sonic skillset: “I have way more paint cans and much finer brushes now.”

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