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Pharrell Williams

Pharrell Williams was already one of the most important and influential producers, writers, rappers of his generation when he had one of the biggest hits of the modern era with the impossibly infectious and feel-good song Happy. The eldest of three sons raised in Virginia Beach, Virginia, he was already playing keyboards and drums and a member of a marching band when he met Chad Hugo, a tenor sax player and conductor, at a seventh grade summer band camp. Together they formed the R&B group The Neptunes with Shay Haley and Mike Etheridge and, after entering a school talent show, were discovered by Teddy Riley. As a result Pharrell went on to write for Wreckx-N-Effect's 1992 hit Rump Shaker and rapped on SWV's Right Here. Establishing themselves as the production team of choice for many leading acts, they developed a distinctive sound heard on hits like Superthug by N.O.R.E, I'm A Slave 4 U by Britney Spears and the Kelis album Kaleidoscope. In 2003 they released the album The Neptunes Present.Clones, which topped the US album chart; and then worked on an alternative production style using the name N.E.R.D. More production work with Jay-Z increased Pharrell's profile as did the remix of Daft Punk's Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, which included a Williams rap. In 2005 Pharrell released his first solo album In My Mind and has subsequently worked with everyone from Kanye West, Gwen Stefani, Beyoncé, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez and Snoop Dogg to Miley Cyrus. Along the way he also somehow found time to set himself up as a fashion designer, while working on massive modern hits like Daft Punk's Get Lucky, Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines - at one point in 2013 he achieved the rare distinction of being Number 1 and 2 in the UK charts at the same time - but achieved his biggest success of all in 2014 with Happy, from the movie Despicable 2 and included on his album Girl.