| Revenge of the Nerds: The Neptunes Do It Their Own Way Hot and Sour Dish by Kimberly Chun (May 2001) One of my favorite singles last year was Jay-Z�s �I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me).� What better slab of sexy, stripped-down, terminally sick beats made it to the top of Billboard�s hip-hop charts? With its sing-along chorus of �Give it to me / Give me that funk, that sweet, that nasty, that gushy stuff,� the tune was so deliciously debauched that it made the phrase �Motorola two-way paging� sound like a particularly sleazy sexual position. So I was looking forward to talking to the producers responsible for that infectious bit of nastiness: Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, otherwise known as the Neptunes production duo. Last weekend, the T-shirted, tattooed Williams and the fatigue-clad, buzz-cut Hugo were in San Francisco, lunching on rice plates at the R&G Lounge, taking calls from their hometown of Virginia Beach and, in the case of Williams, going eyeball to eyeball with a particularly massive pink fish lounging on a battalion of lobsters in the tanks. Their current project? Mixing America�s favorite pop handpuppets, N�Sync, of course. �They're on an R&B level now, more soulful, not so much strict pop,� says Hugo, 27, the Filipino American half of the Neptunes, who met the African American Williams in a seventh-grade jazz program for musically gifted youngsters. (With residents like Missy Elliott and Timbaland, Virginia Beach is apparently thick with talent.) �It�s exciting, because from the stuff we�ve heard, they�re on a different level now. Working with Justin [Timberlake] has kind of given us a whole different view of how talented the guy is.� The prefab hearthrobs are lining up with fellow popsters like No Doubt to get a dose of the Neptunes� sick perspective. But N�Sync will have to wait a few days before Hugo and Williams finish the mix in L.A. Right now, the pair are taking a break from wrapping their fantastically dirty minds around such popular bump �n� grinders as Mystikal �Shake Ya Ass� and Ol� Dirty Bastard�s �Got Your Money,� and they are talking about a pure product of their crazed imaginations: their own album, In Search Of� (Virgin Records), created with fellow childhood pal Shay under the moniker N.E.R.D. � an acronym (sort of) for �No One Ever Really Dies.� The name of the CD comes from their belief that life is a cycle, says Hugo. In a similar way, they�ve cycled about three years worth of ideas and tapes into the new album. �We originally started out as a group before we even started producing more,� Hugo explains. After being discovered by Teddy Riley at their high school talent show, the pair discovered their calling as producers. �This project is kind of like our stored archive of ideas just put down on one big album, not worrying about one genre and not worrying about any musical boundaries.� In Search Of� finds the pair trying out their signature electro-rock on a variety of genres: Williams tries out country-ish vocals in the song �Provider,� and teams up with Lee Harvey and Vida on the metallic hip-hop of �Lapdance.� Trio-ish Krautpop consorts with breezy �Incense and Peppermints�-inspired mod keyboards in �Baby Doll,� before the duo goes the Sly Stone funk-rock route with �Run to the Sun.� Deceptively minimalist, Hugo and Williams� music bubbles with layers of vocals, percussion and keyboards that sound both menacing and familiar, both �80s retro in its uncomplicated instrumentation, yet completely current in its cinematic scope and high drama. With Williams� and Hugo�s eclectic tastes, a smorgasbord of music is up for grabs. Walking from Chinatown back to his hotel in the sun, Williams picks up some discarded CD-Rs scattered on the pavement, tosses them down the street like Frisbees, and then cops to a love of Stereolab and Sergio Mendes. �Man, because honestly, that shit takes me to another level musically,� he says, loping down the sidewalk with his bright yellow Harley Davidson cap firmly clamped on his head. �There�s nothing like when we ain�t working with nobody, and we�re just in there, coming up with hot tracks and new musical directions and shit like that.� Still happily living the quiet life in Virginia Beach, and proudly aligning themselves with nerds everywhere, the boyish twosome aren�t exactly the limo-ensconced megaproducers you might imagine. They get their jollies where they can. �We could be in a store and hear some really dope song with nice chords � it could be elevator music and have a nice chord change � and we�ll be like, �Shit, did you hear that?� And I�ll go home and I�ll try to emulate it on the keyboards.� http://www.asianweek.com/2001_05_11/ae2_hotnsour_neptunes.html |