The Audacity of Dope

No, your eyes do not deceive you.  That is indeed Pharrell running on Manchester United‘s legendary Old Trafford pitch, attempting to abscond with last year’s Champion’s League trophy.  Hilarious hahahah.

Skateboard and Shae stopped by MUFC while in Manchester for a show and they just posted pics on the BBC blog.  Err…not that BBC.  Check ’em out here.

Just when the Olympics end, the EPL season starts to pick up…chyea.

W.T.F.  Not informative, but hilarious.  I assume this happened when “Glow In The Dark” was up in Vancouver about a month ago.

Spotted on KayCee’s bloggy blog.

I’m not a huge fan of this track, but I dig all the artists involved with it.  I just like their separate work more I suppose.  Either way, here’s the video for the song that Converse & Cornerstone helped put together.  Videos like this are hilarious to me, since I know the artists probably shot two takes for a total of 15 minutes in front of a green screen.  Then some unlucky (but talented) editors slaved away for weeks, turning the raw footage into the piece of art you see above.  The visuals are dope.  Shout to all my Cornerstone folk, what up Blaze!

Pharrell, Julian Casablancas, & Santogold – “My Drive Thru”

More N.E.R.D. bonus tracks available here.

Video swiped from Eskay’s.

This is the N.E.R.D. I know.  All 3 of ’em are hilarious in different ways, and here, Pharrell steals the show.  Perhaps one day I’ll post up a speech he recorded for me as his alter ego “JD Sweathog.”  I know.  It’s as weird as it sounds.

Cop Seeing Sounds!  One of the best albums of the year, hands down.

Swiped from the official BBC blog.

Skateboard, Chad, and Shae talk about the world of tattoos.  Chad’s sense of humor is hilarious by the way.

I’m not sure I’m cool with that skin graft stuff.  I’d rather think ahead and avoid getting a million tattoos rather than have to get new skin applied to hit the reset button.  If you’ve already gone all out though, perhaps it’s worth it.  LOL @ how these fools will look at 60 years old (correction: LOL @ them now).  I’m good with my single tat…though I may get another to match it on the other shoulder blade when the day comes.

Sidenote, go cop Seeing Sounds.  “Time For Some Action” is the official workout song of the moment.

Swiped from the illustrious Info.

Couple things:

• Shout to Vancouver hip-hop
• LOL @ Pharrell always rocking that gray sweatshirt and red hat. I think he has the Inspecter Gadget closet full of that outfit. Double LOL @ remembering the dog’s name in that cartoon was “Brain.”
• Hearing Pharrell talk about how 2 million units sold isn’t a big number sounds mad out of place in 2008. Perhaps 2 mill wasn’t huge when Fly or Die dropped, but how many artists sell that these days? Like…5-8 last year…in all genres combined?
• I enjoy P’s CRS answer, though he delivered it better in my interview with him, which you can peep here (or here).
• Swiped from the BBC blog.

Yes y’all, Seeing Sounds drops today and I highly recommend you cop it. Pharrell, Chad, and Shae did a great job and there are some instant classics on the album. It’s pretty much had a monopoly on my stereo this past week, so apologies to any artists that sent me music recently. I’ll check y’all out as soon as I’m done spazzing.

A few bonus tracks hit the net yesterday, so I thought I’d use this reminder post to toss up all the stuff that’s online that didn’t make the US album.

N.E.R.D. ft. Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco, and Pusha T – “Everyone Nose (Remix)”

N.E.R.D. – “Everyone Nose (DJ Ice Freeze’s Baltimore Style Mix)”

N.E.R.D. – “Everyone Nose (Live In NYC, 5-13-08)”

N.E.R.D. – “Spaz (DJ Freakii’s I’m Right Herre Mix)”

N.E.R.D. – “Spaz (Live at SXSW)”

N.E.R.D. – “Laser Gun Carrying”

N.E.R.D. ft. Santogold and Julian Casablancas – “My Drive Thru”

Res – “You Know What (Demo Reference Track)”

That last one is Res singing one of the best songs off the album, apparently as a demo reference track for Pharrell to finish later. Props to 2DopeBoyz for digging that one up.

Speaking of joints that made the final cut, one of my favorites is “Yeah You.” It chronicles an overzealous relationship Pharrell got himself into, and – *shifts into Concrete Loop/Miss Info gossip mode* – it turns out it’s all true. When N.E.R.D. came through Sound Session last month, he mentioned he had a stalker off the air. Later on, we were talking to his assistant and she told us the full scoop.

Apparently P met a super wealthy Japanese girl who went to college in Boston backstage at one of his shows. She had a rep for being crazy (“Niiiiiigo told me don’t do it”), but he figured she could be that night’s jumpoff. Little did he know that she was completely psycho, and afterwards, she ended up calling/emailing/texting him literally a hundred times a day…for months. The assistant stepped in, thinking she could handle the situation (“my friend asked me for your email address, she said she’d take it from here”), but the girl just moved on and is now stalking her. As of a month ago, they were still getting annoyed by the girl. I’m not sure writing “Yeah You” about her will help though, but at least it makes for an interesting story. Just like in the song, she’ll just hit pause and give him a call.

And since I can’t end this entry on some completely worthless gossip ish, check out this great article about Seeing Sounds, written by the homegirl Phayde. She was there with us when N.E.R.D. came through and got some real interesting info on the creation of the album out of the fellas. Here’s a part where Pharrell talked about “Anti Matter”:

Anti Matter
Pharrell: “That’s where we found the subject of ADD and ADHD. A lot of kids become discouraged because it’s a fairly new concept in elementary schools. All they want to do is give you Ritalin but they don’t really want to talk about it. It’s funny, because when a kid has the right parental environment, and the parents are on them quick, that kid with ADD that nobody wants on any sports team usually becomes one of the most successful chairmen of corporations … or a super incredible multi-tasker. The beat is kind of metaphorical for the way those kids perceive things. You’ll see that the beat is very simple in the beginning but then it transforms into this fast-paced thing because that’s the way they hear things.”

You can read the full article in the upcoming issue of Pound Magazine, or online right now…right here.

(“said i was a nerd, but i ain’t a punk” – Skateboard)

Chyea. I’ve been looking forward to the new N.E.R.D. album, Seeing Sounds, for a while and it’s finally here. In Search Of… is a personal classic to me, and while Fly or Die didn’t hit me as hard, it’s still real dope. The day before the Glow In The Dark Tour kicked off here in Seattle, Pharrell, Chad, and Shae came through Sound Session for a little listening party for material off this album (what up Blaze!). Ish sounded dope then, and it’s even better now. It drops this coming Tuesday, June 10th, and if you have any sense in you, you’ll cop this over Wayne’s Carter III disaster. Support good music from artists who put their hearts and souls into their art, painstakingly analyzing every frequency and note they create…not someone who wastes his talent by getting trashed off every drug imaginable, mumbling his way through disjointed rhymes, and slapping the auto-tune effect on it. Hmm, perhaps that was a bit much. Maybe I am a hater. [Mavado] Anywaaaaaaaaay [/Mavado]

Since I interviewed N.E.R.D. right before I launched this blog, here’s a clip of Pharrell explaining the meaning behind the album’s title in case you missed it. Be sure to download the full version of the interview as well, right here.

And a hilarious bonus clip of Pharrell pushing this kid off the stage that’s been all over the net this week. The dap + shove move is clutch.

Remember: Cop the N.E.R.D. album on Tuesday!