Pusha-T and Pharrell Williams watched ‘Joker’ for musical inspiration.
The ‘If You Know You’ know hitmaker brought in his friend to executive produce his upcoming album and he admitted working with the ‘Happy’ singer is an intense process, so they had to take regular breaks but even when they weren’t officially working, they still found benefits to their downtime.
Pusha told Complex magazine: “Sometimes, I’m just like, ‘Man, alright, let’s go ride a bike or play pool.’
“[Watching ‘Joker’] was helpful. What happened was, we would mute [the movie], and we’d be playing the music or the beat while it’s muted. You could see the motion and we’d be like, ‘Oh, that’s a marriage right there.’”
The pair would start their sessions by going through Pharrell’s music library while the producer focused on the composition of each of his pal’s songs.
Pusha laughed: “I’m trying to get to the bottom of the barrel of some street s***, and I’ve got to go through an orchestra. But you’ve got to do it. You’ve got to let him go through his process.”
Pharrell had offended Pusha when he branded him a “mixtape rapper” after hearing an early cut of ‘Hear Me Clearly’.
The rapper recalled: “[Pharrell said] ‘It’s cool, but I don’t want you to be a mixtape rapper for the rest of your life. He was being snide and nasty.
“He knows that my heart is mixtape rap. I only like mixtape verses actually.
“I’ve known him my whole life, and there was a time in which we both had the same taste in mixtape verses. And that’s a time that I try to get him to revisit a lot, in dealing with me. I particularly believe that our success and our greatness is when we’re in those pockets.”