Pharrell Williams’ Produced Justin Timberlake’s ‘Justified’ Beats For Michael Jackson
Pharrell recently revealed that he pitched tracks to Michael Jackson, but they were rejected. Instead, those beats helped shape one of Justin Timberlake’s classic albums.
Speaking on Revolt TV’s Drink Champs podcast, Pharrell and Chad Hugo detailed their early careers.
“Michael turners us down too,” Pharrell said following an explanation of how Prince passed over a track from the Neptunes.
“John McClain was his manager at the time,” he said. “We sent him pretty much all the stuff y’all are hearing on the Justified album. That’s all the Michael stuff.”
Though Pharrell didn’t specify why the legendary singer didn’t want to sing over the beats, his manager revealed what kind of beats he was looking for.
“John McClain was like, ‘Man Michael don’t want that sh*t,” he said. “He want that sh*t you’re giving Noreaga...he want that ‘Superthug.’”
In 2018, Pharrell revealed to Clash magazine that “Frontin” and “Happy” were made for other people.
“All of my biggest songs were songs that I did with or for other people,” he said. “Collaboration has always been part of my DNA.”
“And, to be clear and to be honest, songs that I ended up putting out by myself were always songs that I wrote for other people,” he continued. “I made ‘Frontin’ for Prince, and even ‘Happy’, I wrote that for CeeLo [Green].”
Check out Pharrell’s full Drink Champs interview up above.
