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In search of N.E.R.D.

by Michael Endelman

From the second he steps off the elevator into the lobby of the Colonnade Hotel in Boston, hip-hop producer Pharrell Williams stands out, as hip-hop MC Common once quipped, "like a nigga on a hockey team." A thin, wiry black guy with tattoos reaching down both arms, Williams is wearing what can best be described as white-trash chic with a touch of hip-hop floss -- his gray Prada sneaks, weathered jeans, and plain gray T-shirt are accessorized with a yellow mesh-and-foam trucker cap and a thick gold necklace that peeks out from underneath his shirt. Standing alongside soul singer Kelis (the voice behind last year's cathartic R&B-girl hit "Caught Out There"), who looks oh-so-fly with her zigzag cornrows and oversized shades, Williams attracts pointed stares from the hotel's decidedly tony clientele, so we adjourn to his room.

He should be getting used to the attention by now. As the Neptunes, he and partner Chad Hugo have learned what it's like to be one of the most sought-after production teams in hip-hop and R&B. The duo were discovered by new-jack swing singer/producer Teddy Riley at a school talent show in their home town of Virginia Beach, and they made their first waves producing standout cuts for SWV, Blackstreet, and Noreaga. Since 1999 they've been straight-up unavoidable, creating the grooves behind chart-topping club cuts like Ol' Dirty Bastard's "I Got Your Money," Mystikal's "Shake Ya Ass," Jay-Z's "I Just Wanna Love U (Give It to Me)," and Ludicris's "Southern Hospitality." Not only do they have the entire jiggy hip-hop nation on their jock, but now the A-list pop stars are calling -- No Doubt, 'N Sync, and Marilyn Manson have all requested their services over the past six months. Rumor has it that even the old guard -- Mick Jagger and David Bowie -- want to work with Williams and Hugo.

It's easy to understand why the Neptunes have become so popular. Their minimalist productions are loaded with slippery drum tracks, freaky sonic trickery, and the kind of well-placed hooks that linger long after a song has ended. They have a knack for bringing out the best in their collaborators -- after all, they got the formerly inscrutable Mystikal to tap into his inner James Brown on "Shake Ya Ass," and they resuscitated head case ODB on the Dolemite-disco rump shaker "I Got Your Money."

The Neptunes æsthetic is immediately recognizable: it's a sound that connects the trunk-ready crunk of Southern bounce (subsonic bass bombs, chit-chattering hi-hats, spiky drum patterns) with a heavy dose of '70s funk (chunky clavinet lines, clipped guitar figures, and, most of all, Williams's raspy, Curtis Mayfield-esque falsetto croon). A Neptunes cut doesn't just flow out of a speaker, it drips. And on the first CD to feature Williams and Hugo as both the artists and the producers -- N.E.R.D.'s In Search of . . . (Virgin) -- they continue to conjure up the breathy vocals and synth wiggles of legendary '70s soul brothers like Curtis, Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye.

In Search of . . . also finds Williams and Hugo moving past the singles-oriented dynamic that has dominated their production business to face the challenge of maintaining conceptual coherence over the course of a couple of songs or even an entire album. In the same way that Gaye and Wonder broke free of Berry Gordy's Motown hit machine in the early '70s, N.E.R.D. ("No One Ever Really Dies") has given the Neptunes a chance to stretch their wings and experiment with new styles, odd combinations, and heady lyrical content. It's not exactly Songs in the Key of Life, but with no high-profile cameos, a channel-surfing æsthetic, and little in the way of three-minute radio-ready singles, In Search of . . . rewires jiggy hip-hop with a dose of high-minded art pop that would do Stevie proud.

It's the middle of May when N.E.R.D. make their first-ever live appearance, at the FNX/Phoenix Best Music Poll extravaganza on Lansdowne Street, and when I catch up with them at the Colonnade. Williams is obviously tired and not over-enthusiastic about doing an interview. Nevertheless, he slumps down on an easy chair in his hotel room overlooking Huntington Avenue, while Kelis lounges on the bed watching TV, and offers up this simple analogy to describe their first solo album. "With the Neptunes we are producers, which is like being crayons for other people's coloring book. But with N.E.R.D., it's like our own coloring book and we're coloring it as well. You see what I'm saying, the Neptunes is Batman, N.E.R.D. is Bruce Wayne. Batman had a job. Bruce Wayne was a person."

Williams may be underselling a bit. Bruce Wayne, after all, wasn't just a regular guy but a complicated and confused crusader walking around in a regular-guy disguise. And stripped of their professional duty as 9-to-5 hitmakers, Williams and Hugo have come up with something far weirder than anyone could have expected. More sung than rapped, the tracks on In Search of . . . infuse the dynamic duo's tricked-out future funk with psychedelic pop tunes, rave-rock headbangers, and country-tinged ballads. It's an album that seems to revel in its own unpredictability, as bossa nova bridges give way to swinging mod-rockers and mournful guitar twangs segue into rattling metal riffs. Whereas mainstream hip-hop/R&B is distinguished by pristine, glossy tones, the N.E.R.D. sound is characterized by a greasy, woozy, sleazy sonic blueprint that sounds like the aural equivalent of rotting plastic. It's a sound and a vision that stretch the boundaries of contemporary black pop -- call it post-jiggy.

The beats on In Search of . . . may jitter and hiccup like a Atlanta block party, but the album has more on its agenda than shaking asses and drinking Cristal. Indeed, the songs ponder all sorts of unanswerable questions about love, sex, God, and drugs. "Provider" is a mournful alterna-country drug ballad that sounds like Bruce Springsteen filtered through Method Man; "Truth or Dare" details an Ecstasy-fueled grope fest at a Dionysian nightclub; "Am I High" is a post-coital love ballad that recalls Prince at his most ethereal; "Lapdance" is a grimy bitch slap aimed at politicians but disguised as a stripper anthem.

Which isn't exactly what record execs and radio programmers are looking for. According to Williams, the disc's out-there content made it a hard sell to the label. "I went in and I talked a whole lotta shit to them, and said, look at all the records I'm selling everywhere else, you gotta get behind this. That's the cost of being an innovator." Now he's getting excited. "You get ridiculed all the time and people tell you that your shit ain't gonna work. I had to go through that with my album, the record company was like, `Mmmmm, I don't know.' Because they wanted me to come with some Mercedes Benz, holdin' your balls, nigga shit. Man, I'm an intelligent black man. And at the end of the day I think a whole lot broader than that."

But doesn't Williams have to put up with lots of that "Mercedes Benz, holdin' your balls, nigga shit" as a big-time hip-hop producer? Does any of the brash materialism, thuggish attitude, and brute misogyny of his clients -- say Jay-Z or Noreaga -- rub him the wrong way? There's a long uncomfortable pause.

"I'm thankful and appreciative," he snips. Even though the lyrics might be sort of . . . " This is followed by an even longer pause. "I'm thankful and appreciative . . . But . . . If something is too crazy, I'm gonna speak up. Like one time we were working with Ol' Dirty Bastard and he said something about the Holy Ghost or some shit, and I said, `Naw, brother, you got to change that. That's got to go, jack.' He did some crazy shit, but not on my songs. No way."

Yet if Williams won't mess with religion, he has no hang-ups about sex. Stocked with softcore moans and hardcore come-ons, In Search of . . . exudes raunchy, libidinous energy, from the sleazy synth lines to the heavy-breathing-as-percussion that's audible on almost every track. "Relax girl/Sip some of my slurpee," he offers on "Tape You," attempting to talk his girlfriend(s) into a home movie of sorts.

And then there's that video. The unedited version of the video for N.E.R.D.'s first single, "Lapdance," is a too-hot-for-TV number featuring the Neptunes and a harem of horny, naked nymphos with lesbian tendencies. Both a spoof of hip-hop video excess and a pulse-quickening clip, "Lapdance" is N.E.R.D.'s peculiar attempt at social commentary. "We just wanted to take your breath away with that video so that you'd like it and remember it. And then when you're singing the words back to yourself, you'd realize that it's not just about sex at all. It's about where politics will lead you. We're just drawing a parallel between politicians and strippers, they're doing the same thing. Once the money's gone, so are they."

Later in the evening, Williams pulls a stunt that actually takes my breath away. Performing "Lapdance" in front of a small crowd at Axis, the Neptunes bring out a chorus line of busty, silicon-enhanced strippers -- in George W. Bush masks. A cheap trick and a clever piece of surrealist agit-prop, it is, nonetheless, unforgettable. Mission accomplished.