In the animated biopic Piece by Piece, Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo bond over how they both saw Music in colour.
And as audacious as it might sound to tell your story entirely in Lego animation with a documentary-style set-up, that’s what Williams and director Morgan Neville have done in Piece by Piece, with the vivid colours and sounds an insight into Williams’s imagination.
Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams were known as The Neptunes. (Supplied: Courtesy of Focus Features)
Thirteen-time Grammy award-winning Williams recounts his journey from Virginia Beach to global pop icon.
Along the way he has worked with Kendrick Lamar (Alright), Britney Spears (I’m a Slave 4 U), Jay-Z (Frontin’), Missy Elliott (On & On), Justin Timberlake (Rock Your Body) and Daft Punk (Get Lucky), to name a few of the artists and hits.
Justin Timberlake’s Señorita and Rock Your Body were produced by The Neptunes and were on his debut solo album Justified. (Supplied: Courtesy of Focus Features)
Here are five other tracks Williams and The Neptunes have contributed.
Happy, Pharrell Williams
This infectious track was the only single released from the soundtrack of Despicable Me 2 and received an Academy Award nomination for best original song in 2014, but lost to Let It Go from Frozen. It was the lead single on Williams’s second studio album Girl. It peaked at number one in two dozen countries including the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, where it was the longest-running number-one single of the year, spending 12 weeks in the top spot on the ARIA charts. A live rendition of the song won the Grammy for Best Pop Solo Performance at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards. Happy also won Best Music Video and Girl won Best Urban Contemporary Album.
Drop It Like It’s Hot, Snoop Dogg featuring Pharrell Williams
Drop It Like It’s Hot featuring Pharrell Williams was Snoop Dogg’s first number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. (Supplied: Courtesy of Focus Features)
You hear plenty of hit songs in Piece by Piece and also hear from superstars like Snoop Dogg, who is depicted in Lego. The Doggfather points out in the film that the double-platinum Drop It Like It’s Hot, which features Williams and was produced by The Neptunes, became both artists’ first number one song, which is hard to believe if you grew up listening to Doggystyle. They have teamed up multiple times including on the hit song Beautiful.
Hot in Herre, Nelly
Hot in Herre was certified platinum in Australia and the 2002 song is still a DJ-favourite at clubs around the country. It was written by Nelly, Charles Brown, Cornell Haynes as well as producers Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo of The Neptunes.
Milkshake, Kelly
Kelis will forever be known as the girl whose milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard, but there’s been some argy-bargy over the song. Nevertheless, Milkshake was a massive hit in Australia and around the world, peaking at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100 charts. It was nominated for a Grammy for Best Urban/Alternative Performance in 2004.
Hella Good, No Doubt
Pharrell Williams and Gwen Stefani worked together on Hollaback Girl and No Doubt’s Hella Good. (Supplied: Courtesy of Focus Features)
Gwen Stefani is one of the featured guests in Piece by Piece. Her introduction to Williams and The Neptunes in the mid 2000s marked a rare cross-genre collaboration of the time. Up until then, The Neptunes had mostly produced pop music in the hip hop-realm. Stefani, a founding member and lead vocalist of the rock band No Doubt worked with her band and The Neptunes on Hella Good written by Stefani, Tony Kanal and The Neptunes and featured on No Doubt’s fifth studio album Rock Steady released in 2001.
Stefani and The Neptunes also worked together on 2005’s Hollaback Girl and Stefani featured on Williams’s 2005 single Can I Have It Like That.
Piece by Piece is in cinemas now.
