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What Pharrell does have is those beats, and “Can I Have it Like That” delivers another Neptunes banger. Pharrell is no LL though – his voice is much higher pitched and he doesn’t have three decades of perfecting his flow under his belt. As much as I hated hearing LL Cool J whisper for an entire song on “Phenomenon” it actually serves as a good comparison, because LL still used his delivery and breath control to have a commanding presence on the song. He never shouts or gets loud, quite frankly it seems like his voicebox is made out of glass and would shatter if he did, but it still works. There’s something oddly charming about his vocal tone.
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In MY mind I heard the voice of Del the Funky Homosapien echoing over and over again: “MC’s should know their limitations.” Thankfully Skateboard P does here – he’s keeping the rap simple and to the point. Out the window of the Leer and I’m talkin on my cellyĪll the shit that you should hear, listen clearly now “Can I Have it Like That” featuring Gwen Stefani does get him off to a good start:Īnd it seemed liked my angels couldn’t blow them awayīut then I sold my first verse and copped that NSXīut I was still ridin in them thin-ass jets but now… “It’s not my fault, it didn’t have that Neptunes sound.” No chance of that now for Pharrell, it’s time for the 15 tracks of “In My Mind” to either make him or break him as an artist both musically and lyrically. Maybe it’s not such a gamble to produce your entire solo album when you’re one-half of The Neptunes given their beats have made stars out of some really retarded rappers then again Pharrell could have had an easy out if the album flopped and he had brought in a bunch of guest producers to do his shit. Pharrell is not an offensively whack MC given that he doesn’t try to portray being a hard-ass “Superthug” but no one will ever accuse him of writing a rap masterpiece. Former RR writer Jayson Young summed up the dilemma well in his 2002 review of their rap debut “In Search Of” when he said of Pharrell “If this boy was a battle MC, he would be eaten alive by absolutely any rapper you can think of.” Harsh, but true. Pharrell and his partner Chad Hugo have laced beats for many of the biggest hip-hop hit songs in the last ten years, but whenever The Neptunes tried to be the stars in the booth instead of on production the results were mixed at best. “All songs produced by: Pharrell Williams for The Neptunes.” One has to admit the self-proclaimed “Skateboard P” is a “live by the sword, die by the sword” kind of guy.