Pharrell Williams has been working on new N.E.R.D. music.
The “Happy” hitmaker — who formed the hip-hop rock group in 1999 and released five albums between 2001 and 2017 — has been working on 12 N.E.R.D. records in Paris and he’s promised something special.
“They’re big choruses, but you know, out of nowhere, I’ll just come out of nowhere with the three-bar, crazy-nuts chords that go three-bar to four-bar to eight-bar. It’s good bro, it’s good,” Williams told Tyler The Creator in an interview for GQ magazine.
He compared the new material to 2001’s debut In Search Of …, and insisted he’s getting the same “feeling.”
“This is like that feeling that I felt when we made In Search Of… I won’t sit here and tell you that they were hits. I knew it was different, and I knew there won’t be nothing out there like this,” Williams explained. “But I’m talking about the feeling. I wanted to do everything. I wanted feelings. I wanted the motherf—ing great composition.”
The 50-year-old musician revealed he has also been experimenting with chords he has “never used before” as he puts together music for the “She Wants To Move” band’s upcoming record.
“I wanted great chords. I want to use chords I never used before, and not just the dreamy ones. The ones that I’ve never done, that I f—ing hated. But using them in ways to get to other chords where the changes are such a release. And then, lyrically, the harmonies here … all the songs just have rainbow harmonies,” Williams added.
He didn’t give an update on when exactly fans can expect the album, which would be the follow-up to 2017’s No One Ever Really Dies.
