Pharrell Williams’ falsetto is one of the most recognisable vocal sounds in pop, and has featured on some of the biggest hits of the past two and a half decades (Happy, Get Lucky etc) . However, that doesn’t mean that he’s always been happy with the sound of it.
In fact, in the case of one song that Williams featured on, he says that all he can hear is the voice not of one of Despicable Me's Minions - a cohort that some of his music has become closely associated with - but the world’s most famous cartoon rodent.
“I had a song called Beautiful with Snoop, right?” Williams told CBS Sunday Morning. “Girls heard me singing that. I heard Mickey Mouse.”
Really? Pharrell is convinced, and reckons that, after going back and listening to the 2003 hit again, you will be, too.
“I swear to you when you just get a moment and you just listen, you’ll never be able to unhear it again. But that’s what I hear”
OK - a sexy Mickey Mouse, though? “No, not sexy - just regular Mickey Mouse,” says Pharrell.
Wrap your ears around it and decide for yourself.
Elsewhere in the interview, Williams discusses his early mentor: new jack swing production legend Teddy Riley.
“If it wasn’t for Teddy Riley I wouldn’t be sitting here right now,” he admits, “‘cos I was in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where there was no music studio or music studio or anything like that.”
These days, not only is Williams a hugely successful producer, but he’s also the Men’s Creative Director at Louis Vuitton. Ever the multitasker, though, he manages to handle both jobs at once by having a music studio in his Paris office (or “dreamspace”, as he calls it).
Williams is also on the publicity trail for Piece by Piece, his animated Lego biopic. He previously revealed that he didn’t tell his co-stars - who appear as themselves - about the Lego plan when they were being interviewed for the movie, and also that, although he appears in the film, he’s no longer on speaking terms with his former Neptunes collaborator Chad Hugo.
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