I’m a big fan of the Neptunes production team of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo. However, I’ve always been a little disappointed by Pharrell’s solo career. I feel that, much like Timbaland, he’s trying to cop Kanye’s achievement (and Puff Daddy before him) of being both a hit producer and a performer.
Pharrell’s 2006 debut solo album In My Mind was a little disappointing. The fact is, I love both the N*E*R*D albums, but Pharrell and Chad seem to write terrible lyrics and if the backing tracks don’t kill, then songs just lay there. However, a remix of In My Mind, produced by Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson and James Poyser, has surfaced and sounds much better. According to the blog of ?uestlove (best known as the drummer for hip-hop group The Roots), they knocked the project out in a couple weeks. It’s called Out of My Mind and is credited to Pharrell & The Yessirs.
because there was little to no room for mistakes. we’d spend the day constructing ideas (usually pharrell would utter the “idea” he was going after for instance “number one” was “give me the rod temperton off the wall treatment” and “how does it feel” was the “give me the jimmy castor bunch treatment”.
I really dig the remake of “You Can Do It Too.” ?uestlove explained the approach:
this was one of the few songs in which he had no song reference to start from (although i offered to turn the jamie cullen bridge into a mock gary bartz “gentle smiles (saxy)” that pharrell’s favorite group A Tribe Called Quest used in the bridge to “Butter” on The Low End Theory. The Sprite liquid mix tour in which we first met in 2003 the beatnuts juju gave pharrell some gary bartz records and since then he was hooked. like everyday listening to bartz. breathing bartz. eating bartz. calling me 3am singing bartz. he was obsessed with bartz and wanted to do some songs based on his music (we will still do “celestial blues” one of these days) so i knew once he heard how we made his bridge into a “bartz” like arrangement he’d flip. (boy did he)
Let me explain this. Gary Bartz is a jazz saxophonist. A sample from his 1975 song “Gentle Smiles (Saxy)” was used on by A Tribe Called Quest on their song “Butter.” Now go to “You Can Do It Too.” At 4:10, the vocals of Jamie Cullum come in. The feeling of the Bartz loop is evoked by the new arrangement that comes up behind Cullum and at 5:06, ?uestlove really starts to break it down on the drums.
Then there’s “Baby,” featuring vocals from Nelly. The second I heard the drums, I thought Prince, but ?uestlove offers the real explanation:
“Baby” was our head nod to all the great prince imitators of the 80s (not prince…but the cats that sounded like him: think Ready For The World—they had the same instruments but the mix was totally different)
Totally true. I loved those Prince knockoffs from the Eighties, especially the ones that Prince produced. After all, “Baby” sounds a lot like “Nasty Girl” by Vanity 6.
You can see some behind-the-scenes production footage on YouTube; here is ?uestlove trying out a toy drum to play on “You Can Do It Too” and here is footage of “Baby,” featuring James Poyser on keyboards and recording engineer “Crazy” Steve Mandel on talking keychains (the recording session comes to a halt when Steve disappears).
Pharrell & The Yessirs – You Can Do It Too
Pharrell & The Yessirs (ft. Nelly) – Baby