Pharrell Williams Woolworths deal attracts crowds

Pharrell is off to play South Africa. A few years back, choosing to play South Africa would have brought out massive crowds demanding the event be boycotted.

And, actually, that's what's happening this time, as Pharrell has done a deal with Woolworths. Because the South African retailer sources some of its stock from Israel, Woolworths has been a target for protests from Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Against Israel. And because Pharrell is co-promoting a thing with Woolworths, he's now become part of the target:

“He is about to face the biggest backlash any artist has faced in South Africa in over 30 years, since the days of apartheid,” said Braam Hanekom, a BDS South Africa board member.

“He is walking into a very angry, unhappy environment because he has chosen to walk with Woolworths,” Hanekom told Reuters after the City of Cape Town denied an application by thousands to protest at Pharrell's first concert on September 21.

The rejection of the protest request won't stop the protests; it just means they're going to take a different form.

Blurred credit lines

I suppose that's going to have wiped the Happy off Pharrell Williams' face, as a US court rule he and Robin Thicke ripped off Marvin Gaye.

A jury decided that the music in rohyp-hop hit Blurred Lines was lifted from Gaye, and ordered a payment of nearly five million quid in damages to go to Gaye's estate.

Presumably, Gaye's family will spend most of this money on legal fees trying to get his name taken off the credits again.

Because that's not much of a victory, is it? Sure, you've got the proof that you were plagiarised, but now that crappy song is going to carry a credit that Marvin Gaye helped write it.

It's like you've broken into your the office your boss uses, and done a massive anonymous poo in the middle of their desk. But then discover that Molly from accounts is saying that she did it. You'd feel obligated to put everyone right, no matter how much you don't really want to be associated with the still-steaming turd. It might be an unpleasant pile of stinky old cack, but you'd be damned if someone else is going to pass it off as their work.

There's the potential for more problems for Thicke and Williams, as now the question of who wrote the music has been settled, they're at risk of being sued by the Friends Of Roman Polanski for lifting the lyrics from them.

Robin Thicke out of it while Blurred Lines was created

Apparently Robin Thicke was on drugs while Blurred Lines was being made:

R&B singer Robin Thicke said he was high on painkillers and alcohol in 2013 when "Blurred Lines" became a hit, and he exaggerated his contribution to writing the song, according to court papers filed on Monday.

Thicke, 37, said in a deposition in April that he had been largely absent during the composition of "Blurred Lines," due to being under the influence of opioid painkiller Vicodin mixed with alcohol.

I can see why you might want to claim that you were too drunk to remember writing the rape song; what's questionable is just how off his face he must have been to think it was alright in the first place.

Related: Pharrell Williams, now being given more of the 'credit' for the song, doesn't have the excuse of being too drunk to know what he was doing.

Pharrell upsets Native Americans

The July edition of Elle UK is dubbed a "special collector's edition":

One for collectors of culturally insensitive artefacts, apparently, as Native Americans aren't thrilled with Pharrell playing dress-up with their image:

Taino Ray: How can you do something so stupid and disrespectfulll.. you are not a Chief Pharrel.. The eagle feathers are sacred... Even if you are part Native the headdress is off limits... Its for Warriors and people of the plains culture.. You don't have the right to wear that Pharrel... neither does Cher or Emerson Windy... You guys don't get it.... You will learn the hard way by us Natives telling you so...

"Pharrell" has issued a statement through his publicist:

"I respect and honour every kind of race, background and culture. I am genuinely sorry."

How genuinely sorry you believe Pharrell to be is probably going to be a function of how far you believe the words to be genuinely his. It's such a slight 'sorry about that' it suggests more a damage control than actual contrition.

Fortunately for Elle, the magazine comes with a choice of covers this month, and fortunately they didn't get Keira Knightley to do blackface for hers.

Pharrell Williams calls the next election

It's Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to Pharrell Williams:

Let me tell you why Hillary's going to win. Everywhere you go in this country, you have red and blue. You got the Democrats; you got the Republicans. You got the Bloods; you got the Crips. Everything is red and blue in this country. You know what else is red and blue? Blood. Blood is blue in your body until air hits it, and then it turns red. That means there's unity. There's gonna be unity. So when you think about a night where there's late-night talk-show hosts and it's mostly women, that's a different world. Right? A world where seventy-five percent of the prime ministers and the presidents were women: That's a different world. That's gonna happen, and it's gonna happen when Hillary wins. Because you know what? No matter how staunch of a supporter you are of no-abortion, whatever you are: You're a woman, and there's no way in the world you're going to vote for somebody that's going to try to tell you what to do with your body. When we are a country and we are a species that has had a martian Rover traveling up and down the crevices of this planet looking for water and ice, okay, and we've had a space station that's been orbiting our planet for sixteen years—but we still got legislation trying to tell women what to do with their bodies? Hillary's gonna win. Listen, I'm reaching out to her right now. She's gonna win.

Yes. That makes absolute sense - after all, what sort of woman would ever vote for a person who was going to reduce abortion access?

After all, if women were going to support the idea of harder, fewer, more difficult abortions, you'd see, I don't know, nuns or something picketing clinics, right? And that'd be a crazy thought.

In effect, Williams is suggesting that - when it comes to the ballot box - there's no way Michelle Bachmann would vote against Hillary Clinton.

It might be a very large hat, but he's still talking through it.

Supergroup is such an abused term, isn't it?

But never as abused as Nelly's plans:

Nelly reveals that he wants to create a supergroup with Akon, T-Pain, and Pharrell Williams. "Me, Akon, T-Pain and Pharrell are talking about doing a project. We got a host of things we're trying to do - possibly put together this new 2009 [Bell Biv DeVoe] type of thing," he tells MTV.

You wonder how thrilled Pharrell is with the idea of getting to work with Akon (and, presumably, the terrible misunderstanding involving flying young people and accidently dry-humping underage girls that seem to trail in his wake).

It's hard to say if Williams and Akon is more or less likely than, say, George Clooney and Brad Pitt appearing in Geri's movie; perhaps they could all get together to do the theme tune?

[Thanks to Michael M]

Darkness at 3AM: Pecking orders 'not Transatlantic' shock

3AM are enquiring minds who want to know:

Don't Jay-Z and Pharrell realise that Peaches Geldof is the party scene queen?

The hip-hop legends were chatting away at the Maddox Club, London, but didn't notice Peaches loitering by the VIP area.

This assumes they'd (a) know who she is and/or (b) think that it mattered in the first place, surely?

Plimsole company ups sell-out stakes

Advertising. It's tricky, isn't it? Do you accept cash from advertisers, or do you starve?

Still, at least it's possible to take the money and still retain some of your dignity. Sometimes. Though that's not what Santogold, Pharrell and Julian Casablancas have done, taking the cash and doing a wouldn't-have-happened-without-the-ad collaboration for Converse:

Geoff Cottrill, chief marketing officer for Converse, said "My Drive Thru" ties in comfortably with Converse's heritage of aligning with the independent minded. "We call them optimistic rebels," he said. "They're the core of what our brand stands for -- being an advocate and catalyst for creativity. ... We wanted these guys to come together, create a piece of music and share it with anyone who wanted it."

The independent minded who all wear the same shoes and the optimistic rebels who make a song because a multinational company pay them money. Yes, we've heard of them.

You can hear the song on stereogum but, really, we'd recommend you choose your own shoes and give it a miss.

Williams, make sure you keep all four feet on the ground

Because nobody seems to be able to tell anyone working in hip-hop when their idea is a rubbish one, this chair - the Perspective chair - is going to go into production, a design on a cocktail napkin by Pharrell Williams. It represents the love between a man and a woman, you see, and isn't just the sort of thing your never-married uncle would have bought in the 1970s to furnish his one-room-with-folding-bed pad. Oh, no. This chair comes loaded with cod philosophy:

“I had often wondered what it’s like to truly be in love, not lust for once..So I decided not to ask what it was like in someone else’s shoes or what it was like to sit in their seat..I decided to sketch out my own experiment; the perspective chair.”

So, sitting on a bright red chair is like being in love. Next week: hatred expressed through the medium of toaster-ovens.

First spin: Hard Candy

The Times has had a first listen to Hard Candy, the new Timbaland and Pharrell Williams collaboration featuring Madonna on vocals. Pete(r) Paphides isn't entirely convinced:

When the songs work, it doesn’t much matter that Madonna is blazing a fourth-hand trail. After 25 years of reinvention, we can surely cut her slack in that department. But on Dance 2Night, She’s Not Me and Give It 2 Me, what surprises is how deferential Madonna is to her collaborators. Even the album’s showstopping ballad, The Devil Wouldn’t Recognise You succumbs to a default mode of vast beats.

By this late stage, you rather feel like you’re in your fifth hour at the Ambassador’s famous party. Great, but is there anything else on offer other than Ferrero sodding Rochers?

Fourth hand? If she's doing twenty-year old Prince style "2"s instead of "to"s, that might be over generous.

What appears to have happened is - as one of pop's foremost brands - Madonna has followed the logic of turning herself into a corporation to the ultimate conclusion. She's outsourced the album.

Madonna clunkers along

When, exactly, did Madonna get lapped? We can't pretend that we find it heartbreaking anymore as she turns up catching trends just as they wane - Kanye West and Pharrell Williams for the next album - but it's like she's desperate to keep up with the young folk but having to wait for magazines to arrive by surface mail to discover what's hot. By which time everyone's started to move on. It's been going on for a while - Austin Powers when fancy dress shops could no longer give away the costumes; Ali G when even Baron Cohen was thinking it was time to move on; guesting on Britney Spears records when even Britney was tiring of appearing on them. But when did it happen that she first fell behind like this?

Al Gore calls his good friend Lenny Kravitz

Amongst those being called for the Rio leg of Live Earth: Lenny Kravitz, Macy Gray and Pharrell Williams.

It's barely even worth counting the excess air travel that clocks up, isn't it?

Formerly modish band hope "unexpected" producer will make them modish again

The Hives, who, to be frank, we have trouble calling to mind when we hear their name nowadays - oh, yeah, suits, right? - are attempting to reignite interest by choosing an "unexpected" producer.

We know what you're thinking: Is this really an unexpected choice of producer, or have they merely done something like hook up with Pharrell Williams?

The latter, I'm afraid:

In a statement singer Howlin Pelle wrote: "This new album has been recorded all over the world because we thought it was time to have other people involved besides ourselves and our closest friends. The lion's share of this new album was recorded in Mississippi with producer Dennis Herring. We also met producer Pharrell Williams in Japan a while ago. He told us: 'We should record together,' and 'something bass guitar-based.' We ended up spending some time in Miami making music with him. Some of his music will end up on the Hives' new record."

So, "the lions share" was done in Mississippi, and "some time" was spent in Miami - and this constitutes "all over the world"?