N.E.R.D turns hip-hop paradigm on its head

By Tim Molloy
Associated Press

Members of N.E.R.D. from left: Pharrell Williams, Shay Haley and Chad Hugo. N.E.R.D. stands for "no one ever really dies." Williams and Hugo, as the Neptunes, make hit music for Nelly, Beyonce Knowles, Jay-Z and Britney Spears. Associated Press

It belongs to Pharrell Williams, who with Chad Hugo makes up the production duo the Neptunes.

The pair are doing for Jade what they've spent the last three years doing for Britney Spears and Jay-Z, among others: creating music laced with the off-kilter flourishes that have earned them a reputation as the most inventive of today's top producers.

This month, Williams was listed No. 1 in Billboard's top 100 songwriters of the year for writing or co-writing 11 hits, including "Girlfriend" by 'N Sync, "U Don't Have to Call" by Usher and "I'm A Slave 4 U" by Britney Spears.

The Neptunes are also behind the first single from St. Louis rapper Nelly's album, "Nellyville" (out today) and "Work It Out," the retro-flavored Beyonce Knowles single from the new Austin Powers movie. In other words, if you're listening to popular music, you're hearing their work.

Meticulously crafting strange and infectious songs for other people is the Neptunes' first job. The second — the group they've formed with high school pal Shay Haley — is harder to define. Called N.E.R.D., an abbreviation for "no one ever really dies," the group defies genres, merging punk rock's do-it-yourself sensibility with hip-hop beats and minor-key melodies as disorienting as they are infectious.

N.E.R.D.'s debut album "In Search Of ..." is stocked with songs that seem at first to be about sex and nightclubs but reveal themselves to be about exploitation, frustration and perseverance.

The phrase "no one ever really dies" reflects the group's spiritual beliefs, but the name "N.E.R.D." is also about feeling comfortable being different — and about making different kinds of music.

"For the ones that don't know what we're doing, we're trying to show them that there are more aspects to music than what they hear all the time," says Haley, who handles vocals with Williams.

If anyone likes making noise more than the members of N.E.R.D., you may not want to be within earshot. Members fill every moment singing or shouting whatever pops into their heads. During a recent group interview, Williams sat quietly for the most part, coming alive only for this occasional shout: "AYYYYYY! Macarena!"

Spears says: "They're the funniest guys. I love them. Actually, I don't know if I should be saying this, but they're the funniest guys I've ever worked with."

The three members of N.E.R.D. started hanging out in high school partly out of shared love for the music of hip-hop innovators A Tribe Called Quest.

The intellect and playfulness of their own music recalls Tribe's, but the group also notes the influence of rock groups like Steely Dan, known for obsessive detail in the studio.

Hugo remembers making multitrack recordings when he was 12 without any special recording equipment. He recorded songs on a Casio keyboard and on a boombox with a built-in microphone.

"I played it back on a home stereo at full blast. While that was playing, I put on another tape in the boombox and recorded the stereo along with another live track of maybe piano or banging on the table for a beat. And I'd just keep doing it over and over."

Hugo and Williams met in music class and got their first break when producer Teddy Riley discovered them at a high school talent show. He later enlisted them to produce for his group Blackstreet.