Pharrell Williams' Resume: The History of a Hardworking N.E.R.D

It's incredible to think that Pharrell Williams, the artist and entrepreneur who recently turned 40, was once fired from three different McDonald's in Virginia Beach.
It all in began in 1992. That year, Pharrell helped Teddy Riley write his verse for Wreckx-N-Effect's "Rump Shaker," and created The Neptunes, a production duo that included him and longtime friend and collaborator, Chad Hugo
   Since then, he has gone on to do almost everything. Seriously, everything. From founding a music label and a skateboard team, to becoming the Brand Ambassador and Creative Director for several different organizations, Skateboard P's influence encompasses much more than just music.
On top of that, how this guy manages to look younger and younger each day, while doing as much as he does, may forever be a mystery. (Cetaphil can only do so much, man.)
Another job for Pharrell is probably, if not always, around the corner. And since we at Billboard.com care about Pharrell's ever-growing success, we decided to compile a resume for him. (Feel free to shoot us the location of the Fountain of Youth when you can, Pharrell. Thanks!)
 

Pharrell Williams' Top 40 Return: 10 Songs That Prefaced His Pop Comeback

 

From songs with Frank Ocean to Adam Lambert, check out Pharrell's fascinating work leading up to "Get Lucky" and "Blurred Lines."

Looking at the Top 20 of the current Hot 100 chart, a familiar name appears twice: Pharrell Williams. For fans of early '00s pop music, this is hardly an unusual sight -- time was, Williams was about as consistent of a presence as there was on the charts, both as a behind-the-scenes producer and as a go-to hook man and featured artist on smashes by Nelly, Snoop Dogg, Justin Timberlake, Clipse and countless others. But as the golden age of the baby-faced rapper/singer and his production team the Neptunes (with longtime partner Chad Hugo) faded with the rise of rawer hip-hop sub-genres like crunk and snap, and as Williams and Hugo moved in different directions creatively (the former releasing his first solo album in 2006, and both continuing work in the experimental alt-rap group N.E.R.D.), the hits dried up. As of early 2013, Pharrell had not worked on a single that cracked the Top 40 of the Hot 100 -- either solo or as part of the Neptunes -- in over half a decade. Amazingly, his last hit came way back in late 2006 with Gwen Stefani's No. 6-peaking "Wind It Up," which Williams co-wrote and the Neptunes produced. 
However, that's not to say that Pharrell had become dormant or static as an artist -- far from it. Despite his quiet end to the '00s, his first few years of the '10s have actually represented one of the most artistically fruitful periods of his 20-plus-year career in popular music. Since 2010, Williams has diversified his musical portfolio while affirming that he was still one of the best at doing what he'd always done -- crafting catchy, funky, and instantly memorable hip-hop beats. It was only a matter of time until one of his songs re-introduced him to the Top 40… and as if to over-compensate for lost time, two of them, the Daft Punk disco throwback collaboration "Get Lucky" and the clang-and-shuffle of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines," arrived almost simultaneously this year.
.....More to come..Amakhian Best