Mixed Media Portrait Sculpture of 18th century French peasants by artist George S. Stuart, in the permanent collection of the Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, California, USA.

A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally works land owned or rented by/from a noble, with regards to the era. The peasant was bound to the land and could not move or change their occupation unless they became a yeoman (free person), which generally happened by buying their freedom. The peasant also generally had to give most of their crops to the nobles.

Etymology[link]

The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.^[1]

Position in the hierachy[link]

In a detail from Bruegel's The Land of Cockaigne (1567), a soft-boiled egg has little feet to rush to the luxuriating peasant who catches drops of honey on his tongue, while roast pigs roam wild: in fact, the average European in the 16th century faced hunger and harsh winters

Peasants typically make up the majority of the agricultural labour-force in a pre-industrial society, dependent on the civilization of their land: without stockpiles of provisions they thrive or starve according to the most recent harvest. The majority of the people in the Middle Ages were peasants. (Pre-industrial societies have diminished with the advent of industrialization.)

Though "peasant" is a word of loose application, once a market economy has taken root the term peasant proprietors is frequently used to describe the traditional rural population in countries where smallholders farm much of the land. It is sometimes used by people who consider themselves of higher class, more precisely the second and first Estate - these were the Nobility and the Clergy and right at the top was the monarch. As slang to refer pejoratively to those of poorer education who come from a lower income background.

Medieval European peasants[link]

The relative position of peasants in Western Europe improved greatly after the Black Death unsettled the demography of medieval Europe.

In the wake of this disruption to the established order, later centuries saw the invention of the printing press, the development of widespread literacy and the enormous social and intellectual changes of the Enlightenment.

This evolution of ideas in an environment of relatively widespread literacy laid the groundwork for the Industrial Revolution, which enabled mechanically- and chemically-augmented agricultural production while simultaneously increasing the demand for factory workers in cities. Urban factory-workers, with their low skill and large numbers, quickly came to occupy the socio-economic stratum formerly the preserve of the medieval peasants.

This process happened in an especially pronounced and truncated way in Eastern Europe. Lacking any catalysts for change in the 14th century, Eastern European peasants largely continued upon the original medieval path until the 18th and 19th centuries. Serfdom was abolished in Russia in 1863, allowing the buying and selling of lands traditionally held by peasants, and allowing the landless ex-peasants to move to the cities.^[2]

Early modern Germany[link]

"Feiernde Bauern" (Celebrating Peasants), artist unknown, 18th or 19th century

In Germany, peasants continued to center their lives in the village well into the 19th century. They belonged to a corporate body and helped to manage the community resources and to monitor community life.^[3] In the East they had the status of serfs bound permanently to parcels of land.

In most of Germany, farming was handled by tenant farmers who paid rents and obligatory services to the landlord - typically a nobleman.^[4] Peasant leaders supervised the fields and ditches and grazing rights, maintained public order and morals, and supported a village court which handled minor offenses. Inside the family the patriarch made all the decisions, and tried to arrange advantageous marriages for his children. Much of the villages' communal life centered around church services and holy days. In Prussia, the peasants drew lots to choose conscripts required by the army. The noblemen handled external relationships and politics for the villages under their control, and were not typically involved in daily activities or decisions.^[5]

19th century France[link]

In his seminal book Peasants into Frenchmen: the Modernization of Rural France, 1880–1914 (1976), historian Eugen Weber traced the modernization of French villages and argued that rural France went from backward and isolated to modern and possessing a sense of French nationhood during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.^[6] He emphasized the roles of railroads, republican schools, and universal military conscription. He based his findings on school records, migration patterns, military-service documents and economic trends. Weber argued that until 1900 or so a sense of French nationhood was weak in the provinces. Weber then looked at how the policies of the Third Republic created a sense of French nationality in rural areas.^[7] The book was widely praised, but some^[8] argued that a sense of Frenchness existed in the provinces before 1870.

Historiography[link]

Since it was the literate classes who left the most records, and these tended to dismiss peasants as figures of coarse appetite and rustic comedy, the term "peasant" may have a pejorative rather than descriptive connotation in historical memory. Society was theorized as being organized into three "estates": those who work, those who pray, and those who fight.^[9] The importance of peasants was emphasized by the Annales School of French historians. Its leader Fernand Braudel devoted the first volume–called The Structures of Everyday Life–of his major work, Civilization and Capitalism 15th–18th Century to the largely silent and invisible world that existed below the market economy.

Other research in the field of peasant studies was promoted by Florian Znaniecki and Fei Xiaotong, and in the post-1945 studies of the "great tradition" and the "little tradition" in the work of Robert Redfield. In the 1960s, anthropologists and historians began to rethink the role of peasant revolt in world history and in their own disciplines. Peasant revolution was seen as a Third World response to capitalism and imperialism.^[10]

The anthropologist Eric Wolf, for instance, drew on the work of earlier scholars in the Marxist tradition such as Daniel Thorner, who saw the rural population as a key element in the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Wolf and a group of scholars^[who?] criticized both Marx and the field of modernization theorists for treating peasants as lacking the ability to take action.^[11] James C. Scott's field observations in Malaysia convinced him that villagers were active participants in their local politics even though they were forced to use indirect methods. Many of these activist scholars looked back to the Peasant movement in India and to the theories of the revolution in China led by Mao Zedong starting in the 1920s. The anthropologist Myron Cohen, however, asked why the rural population in China were called "peasants" rather than "farmers", a distinction he called political rather than scientific.^[12] One important outlet for their scholarly work and theory was the Journal of Peasant Studies.

See also[link]

"Peasants in a Tavern" by Adriaen van Ostade (c. 1635), at the Alte Pinakothek, Munich

The Peasant Wedding, by Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder, 1567 or 1568

• Agrarianism
• Family economy
• Feudalism
• Folk culture
• Peasant economics
• Peasant Party (political movements in various countries)
• Peasants' Revolt
• Petty nobility
• Popular revolt in late-medieval Europe
• Serfdom

Other terms for "peasant"[link]

• Aloer
• Campesino
• Churl
• Cotter
• Fellah
• Free tenant
• Hari
• Honbyakushō
• Kotsias
• Kulak
• Muzhik
• Nóngmín
• Pagesos de remença
• Peasant farmer
• Peon
• Serf
• Smerd
• Ṭǎran
• Tenant farmer
• Vecin
• Villein

Notes and references[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Peasants

Bibliography[link]

• Bix, Herbert P. Peasant Protest in Japan, 1590-1884 (1986)
• Cohen, Myron. "Cultural and Political Inventions in Modern China: The Case of the Chinese 'Peasant'", Daedalus 122.2 (Spring 1993): 151-170.
• Evans, Richard J., and W. R. Lee, eds. The German Peasantry: Conflict and Community from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Centuries (1986)
• Hobsbawm, E. J. "Peasants and politics," Journal of Peasant Studies, Volume 1, Issue 1 October 1973, pages 3 – 22 - article discusses the definition of "peasant" as used in social sciences
• Macey, David A. J. Government and Peasant in Russia, 1861-1906; The Pre-History of the Stolypin Reforms (1987).
• Wolf, Eric R. Peasants (Prentice-Hall, 1966).
• Wolf, Eric R. Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (Harper & Row, 1969).

Recent[link]

• Akram-Lodhi, A. Haroon, and Cristobal Kay, eds. Peasants and Globalization: Political Economy, Rural Transformation and the Agrarian Question (2009)
• Barkin, David. "Who Are The Peasants?" Latin American Research Review, 2004, Vol. 39 Issue 3, pp 270–281
• Brass, Tom. Peasants, Populism and Postmodernism (2000)
• Brass, Tom, ed. New Farmers' Movements in India (1995)
• Brass, Tom, ed. Latin American Peasants (2003)
• Scott, James C. The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (2008)

Terry Jones
Terry Jones, 5 May 2007
Born	(1942-02-01) 1 February 1942 (age 70) Colwyn Bay, North Wales, United Kingdom
Occupation	Actor, comedian, film director, presenter, poet, writer, historian
Known for	Monty Python
Spouse	Alison Telfer
Website
terry-jones.net

Terence Graham Parry Jones (born 1 February 1942) is a Welsh comedian, screenwriter, actor, film director, author, political commentator, and TV host. He is best known as a member of the Monty Python comedy team.

Early life[link]

Jones was born in Colwyn Bay, Wales. The family home was named "Bodchwil". His father was stationed with the RAF in India. When Jones was four-and-a-half, the family moved to Surrey.^[1]

Jones was educated at the Royal Grammar School^[2] in Guildford, where he was head boy in the 1960-61 academic year. He read English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, but "strayed into history".^[3] He graduated with a 2:1.^[4] While there, he performed comedy with future Monty Python castmate Michael Palin in The Oxford Revue.

Career history[link]

Before Python[link]

Jones appeared in Twice a Fortnight with Palin, Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie and Jonathan Lynn, as well as the television series The Complete and Utter History of Britain (1969). He appeared in Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967–69) with Palin, Eric Idle and David Jason. He wrote for The Frost Report and several other David Frost programmes on British television. Along with Palin, he wrote lyrics for the 1968 Barry Booth album "Diversions".

Early on, Jones was interested in devising a fresh format for the Python TV shows, and it was largely he who developed the stream-of-consciousness style which abandoned punchlines and encouraged the fluid movement of one sketch into another, allowing the troupe's conceptual humour the space to “breathe”. Jones took a keen interest in the direction of the show. As demonstrated in many of his sketches with Palin, Jones was interested in making comedy that was visually impressive, feeling that interesting settings augmented, rather than detracted from, the humour. His methods encouraged many future television comedians to break away from conventional studio-bound shooting styles, as demonstrated by shows such as Green Wing, Little Britain and The League of Gentlemen.

Of Jones' contributions as a performer, his depictions of middle-aged women are among the most memorable. His humour, in collaboration with Palin, tends to be conceptual in nature. A typical Palin/Jones sketch draws its humour from the absurdity of the scenario. For example, in the “Summarise Proust Competition”, Jones plays a cheesy game show host who gives contestants 15 seconds to condense Marcel Proust's lengthy work À la recherche du temps perdu. Jones was also noted for his gifts as a Chaplinesque physical comedian. His performance in the "Undressing in Public" sketch, for instance, is done is total silence.

Directorial work[link]

Jones co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail with Terry Gilliam, and was sole director on two further Monty Python movies, Life of Brian and Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. As a film director, Jones finally gained fuller control of the projects and devised a visual style that complemented the humour. His later films include Erik the Viking (1989) and The Wind in the Willows (1996). In 2008, Jones wrote and directed an opera titled Evil Machines.^[5] In 2011, he was commissioned to direct and write the libretto for another opera, entitled The Doctor's Tale.^[6]

On the commentary track of the 2004 "2 Disc Special Edition" DVD for the film Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, Terry Jones stated that to his knowledge Ireland had banned only four movies, three of which he had directed: The Meaning of Life, Monty Python's Life of Brian and Personal Services.

Animation[link]

He was the creator and co-producer of the animated television program Blazing Dragons, which ran for two seasons.^{[citation needed]} Set in a fantasy medieval setting, the series' protagonists are dragons who are beset by evil humans, reversing a common story convention. When the series was broadcast on US television, several episodes were censored due to minor cursing and the implied sexuality of an overtly effeminate character named "Sir Blaze".^{[citation needed]} It was turned into a game for the Sega Saturn in 1994, which starred Jones's voice.^{[citation needed]}

As an author[link]

He co-wrote Ripping Yarns with Palin, and wrote the screenplay for Labyrinth (1986), although his draft went through several rewrites and several other writers before being filmed; much of the finished film wasn't written by Jones at all. He has also written numerous works for children, including Fantastic Stories, The Beast with a Thousand Teeth, and a collection of Comic Verse called The Curse of the Vampire's Socks.

He has written books and presented television documentaries on medieval and ancient history and the history of numeral systems. His series often challenge popular views of history: for example, Terry Jones' Medieval Lives (2004) (for which he received a 2004 Emmy nomination for "Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming") argues that the Middle Ages was a more sophisticated period than is popularly thought, and Terry Jones' Barbarians (2006) presents the cultural achievements of peoples conquered by the Roman Empire in a more positive light than Roman historians typically have, while criticizing the Romans as the true "barbarians" who exploited and destroyed higher civilizations.

He has written numerous editorials for The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Observer condemning the Iraq war. Many of these editorials were published in a paperback collection titled Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror.

Chaucer's Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary (1980) offers an alternative take on the historical view of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Knight's Tale as being a paragon of Christian virtue. Jones asserts that, after closer examination of historical rather than literary context, the Knight is actually a typical mercenary and a potentially cold-blooded killer.

His most recent book, "Evil Machines", was launched by the online publishing house Unbound at the Adam Street Club in London on 4 November 2011. Evil Machines is the world's first book to be published by a crowd funding website dedicated solely to books. Jones provided significant support to Unbound as they developed their publishing concept.

He is also a member of the UK Poetry Society and his poems have appeared in Poetry Review.

Working with musicians[link]

Jones has performed with The Carnival Band and appears on their 2007 CD Ringing the changes (Park Records PRKCD98).

In January 2008, the Teatro São Luiz, in Lisbon, Portugal, premiered Evil Machines – a musical play, written by Jones (based on his book) and with original music by Portuguese composer Luis Tinoco. Jones was invited by the Teatro São Luiz to write and direct the play, after a very successful run of Contos Fantásticos, a short play based on Jones' Fantastic Stories, also with music by Luis Tinoco.

In January 2012, it was announced that Jones is working with songwriter/producer Jim Steinman on a heavy metal version of "The Nutcracker."^[7]

As performer[link]

Apart from a cameo in Terry Gilliam's Jabberwocky and a memorable minor role as a drunken vicar in BBC sitcom The Young Ones, Jones has rarely appeared in work outside of his own projects. Since January 2009, however, he has provided narration for The Legend of Dick and Dom, a CBBC fantasy series set in the Middle Ages.

In 2009 Jones took part in the BBC Wales programme Coming Home about his Welsh family history.

Personal life[link]

Jones married Alison Telfer in 1970, and they have two children together, Sally (born in 1974), and Bill (born in 1976). The marriage broke down after he admitted to falling in love with 26-year-old student Anna Söderström.

On 21 October 2006, it was reported in The Daily Mirror that Jones had been diagnosed with bowel cancer.^[8] Another article dated three days later, also by The Mirror, indicated that the exploratory surgery performed on Jones had good results.^[9] It was reported in the British media on 27 April 2009 that Jones was due to become a father for the third time in the autumn of 2009, by way of Söderström. But he remained married to Telfer.^[10] Jones's daughter Siri was born in early September 2009.^[11]

Selected bibliography[link]

Fiction[link]

• Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic (1997), ISBN 0-330-35446-9 – a novel based on the computer game of the same name by Douglas Adams. (Jones claims to have written the entire book while in the nude.)
• Evil Machines (2011), ISBN 978-1-908717-01-6

Illustrated by Michael Foreman

• Fairy Tales (1981), ISBN 0-907516-03-3
• The Saga of Erik the Viking (1983), ISBN 0-907516-23-8 – Children's Book Award 1984
• Nicobobinus (1985), ISBN 1-85145-000-9
• The Curse of the Vampire's Socks and Other Doggerel (1988), ISBN 1-85145-233-8 – poetry
• Fantastic Stories (1992), ISBN 1-85145-957-X
• The Beast with a Thousand Teeth (1993), ISBN 1-85793-070-3
• A Fish of the World (1993), ISBN 1-85793-075-4
• The Sea Tiger (1994), ISBN 1-85793-085-1
• The Fly-by-Night (1994), ISBN 1-85793-090-8
• The Knight and the Squire (1997), ISBN 1-86205-044-9
• The Lady and the Squire (2000), ISBN 1-86205-417-7 – nominated for a Whitbread Award
• Bedtime Stories (2002), ISBN 1-86205-276-X – with Nanette Newman

Illustrated by Brian Froud

• Goblins of the Labyrinth (1986), ISBN 1-85145-058-0
  • The Goblin Companion: A Field Guide to Goblins (1996), ISBN 1-85793-795-3 – an abridged re-release, in a smaller format, with the colour plates missing
• Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book (1994), ISBN 1-85793-336-2
• Strange Stains and Mysterious Smells: Quentin Cottington's Journal of Faery Research (1996), ISBN 0-684-83206-2
• Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Journal (1998), ISBN 1-86205-024-4
• Lady Cottington's Fairy Album (2002), ISBN 1-86205-559-9

Illustrated by Martin Honeysett and Lolly Honeysett

• Bert Fegg's Nasty Book for Boys and Girls with Michael Palin (1974) ISBN 0-413-32740-X

Non-fiction[link]

• Chaucer's Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary (1980), ISBN 0-297-77566-9; rev. ed. (1994), ISBN 0-413-69140-3
• Who Murdered Chaucer?: A Medieval Mystery (2003), ISBN 0-413-75910-5 – with Robert Yeager, Terry Dolan, Alan Fletcher and Juliette Dor
• Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror (2005), ISBN 1-56025-653-2

With Alan Ereira

• Crusades (1994), ISBN 0-563-37007-6
• Terry Jones' Medieval Lives (2004), ISBN 0-563-48793-3
• Terry Jones' Barbarians (2006), ISBN 0-563-49318-6

Screenplays[link]

• And Now for Something Completely Different (1972) with Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin
• Secrets (1973) – for TV, with Michael Palin
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) with Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin
• Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) with Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin
• Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983) with Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin
• Labyrinth (1986)
• Erik the Viking (1989) – includes a notice in the credits specifically disclaiming any link with Jones's earlier novel ("although he hopes it will help the sales")
• The Wind in the Willows (1996)

Documentary series[link]

• Crusades (1995)
• Ancient Inventions – directed by Phil Grabsky and Daniel Percival (1998)
• The Surprising History of Egypt (USA, 2002) a.k.a. The Hidden History of Egypt (UK, 2003) – directed by Phil Grabsky
• The Surprising History of Rome (USA, 2002) a.k.a. The Hidden History of Rome (UK, 2003) – directed by Phil Grabsky
• The Surprising History of Sex and Love (2002) – directed by Alan Ereira and Phil Grabsky
• Terry Jones' Medieval Lives (2004)
• The Story of 1 (2005)
• Terry Jones' Barbarians (2006)
• Terry Jones' Great Map Mystery (2008)

Political articles[link]

Jones has published a number of articles on political and social commentary, principally in newspapers The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, and The Observer. Many of these articles criticized the war on terror, belittling it as "declaring war on an abstract noun" and comparing it to attempting to "annihilate mockery".^[12]

Collaborations[link]

	Monty Python and the Holy Grail	Monty Python's Life of Brian	Monty Python's The Meaning of Life	Erik the Viking	The Wind in the Willows
Graham Chapman	Y	Y	Y
John Cleese	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Carol Cleveland	Y	Y	Y
Terry Gilliam	Y	Y	Y
Eric Idle	Y	Y	Y		Y
Neil Innes	Y	Y
Terry Jones	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Charles McKeown		Y		Y
Michael Palin	Y	Y	Y		Y
John Young	Y	Y

Jones and Gavin Scott have been working for years on a script for a "sci-fi farce combining CGI and live action" tentatively called Absolutely Anything;^[13] the film is expected to begin principal photography in spring 2012,^[13] with Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, and Michael Palin agreeing to "provide voices for a group of aliens".^[14]

Miscellany[link]

• An asteroid, 9622 Terryjones, is named in his honour. When asked during a webchat if this were the greatest honour he has received, Jones replied, "I didn't realise it was an honour to have a barren lump of rock named after one."^{[citation needed]}

Further reading[link]

• Wilmut, Roger (1980). From Fringe to Flying Circus: Celebrating a Unique Generation of Comedy, 1960–1980. London: Eyre Methuen. ISBN 0-413-46950-6. 

References[link]

Notes

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Terry Jones

• Terry Jones on twitter
• Terry Jones at the Internet Movie Database
• Terry Jones at the BBC Guide to Comedy
• Terry Jones at the Comedy Zone
• MP3 audio interview with Jones from The Sound of Young America public radio program and podcast
• Interview with Terry Jones by Jeff Fleischer in Mother Jones. He talks about his politics columns.
• Text interview with Jones from Wisconsin Public Television. Jones talks about Monty Python's legacy and his more current work.

Chris Carey is Professor of Greek at University College London (UCL). In April 2000 The Independent named him as one of the "stars of modern classical scholarship".^[1]

Biography[link]

Carey began his career at Cambridge University, as a research fellow at Jesus College, before moving to St Andrews University, where he taught from 1977 to 1991 except for a visiting professorship at University of Minnesota in 1987-8. While in Minnesota he also taught at Carleton College. In 1991 he was elected Professor of Classics at Royal Holloway, University of London before moving to UCL to take up the Chair of Greek in 2003.

Teaching[link]

At UCL he teaches Ancient Greek, Greek tragedy and comedy, Athenian law and Homer.

Scholarship[link]

Carey's PhD was on Pindar and was supervised by P. E. Easterling, John Killen and the late Sir Denys Page. Over the years he has also published on lyric poetry, Homer and Athenian law. He recently completed the Oxford Text of the orator Lysias.

He is currently under contract to produce a Cambridge University Press commentary on Book 7 of Herodotus.

Outside activities[link]

Carey is well known for his love of London and London life. He is a great proselytizer for Classics, giving frequent lectures to school audiences, and is a patron of The Iris Project.

References[link]

1. ^ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/its-a-ticket-back-to-civilisation-697986.html

External links[link]

• http://www.ucl.ac.uk/
• http://www.irismagazine.org/

Pharrell Williams
Pharrell Williams performing with N.E.R.D in Pori Jazz 2010.
Background information
Also known as	Skateboard P, Pharrell, Sk8brd (mononym), Auto Goon
Born	(1973-04-05) April 5, 1973 (age 39)
Origin	Virginia Beach, Virginia, United States
Genres	Various
Occupations	Producer, musician, songwriter, singer, rapper, fashion designer
Instruments	Piano, keyboards, guitar, drums
Years active	1992–present
Labels	Star Trak, Interscope, i am Other
Associated acts	N.E.R.D, Chad Hugo, Clipse, Kelis, Snoop Dogg, Justin Timberlake, T.I, Lupe Fiasco, N.O.R.E., Child Rebel Soldier
Website	pharrellwilliams.com
Notable instruments
Piano, keyboards, drums

Pharrell Williams (born April 5, 1973), commonly known simply as Pharrell, is an American rapper, singer, record producer, composer, and fashion designer. Williams and Chad Hugo make up the record production duo The Neptunes, producing hip hop and R&B music. He is also the lead vocalist and drummer of hip-hop band N.E.R.D, which he formed with Hugo and childhood friend Shay Haley. He released his first single "Frontin'" in 2003 and followed up with his first album In My Mind in 2006.^[1]

As part of The Neptunes, Williams has produced numerous hit singles for various musicians.^[2] The two have earned three Grammy Awards amongst ten nominations. He is also the co-founder of the clothing brands Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream Clothing. He is a member of the supergroup V.A. Playaz with Fam-Lay, Clipse, Skillz, Missy Elliott, and Timbaland & Magoo.

Early life[link]

Pharrell Williams was born on April 5, 1973, in Virginia Beach, Virginia,^[3][4] the eldest of three sons of Carolyn, a teacher, and Pharaoh Williams, a handyman.^[5] He met Chad Hugo in a seventh-grade summer band camp where Williams played the keyboards and drums and Hugo played tenor saxophone. They were also both members of a marching band; Williams played the snare drum while Chad was student conductor.^[6][7] With Hugo, Williams attended Princess Anne High School where they played in the school band; there he got the name Skateboard P.^[8]

In the 1990s, Hugo and Williams formed a four-piece "R&B type" group, The Neptunes, with friends Shay Haley and Mike Etheridge. They later entered a high school talent show where they were discovered by Teddy Riley, whose studio was next to Princess Anne High School.^[9] After graduating from high school, the group signed with Riley.^[10]

Career[link]

1992–1997: Career beginnings[link]

Through working with Maddison Harper, Williams went on to write a verse for Wreckx-N-Effect's 1992 hit "Rump Shaker".^[11] That same year, he also performed a small rap solo on SWV's second hit, "Right Here (UK Remix)". In 1994, Hugo and Williams had established themselves as a production duo under their old name "The Neptunes", and produced "Tonight's The Night" from Blackstreet's self-titled album. Over the next three years they continued to produce occasionally. Some of the results had little resemblance to the Neptunes sound of today. However, some like Mase's 1997 song "Lookin' at Me" from his album Harlem World, and the most definite beginning of the distinctive "Neptunes sound", came with N.E.R.D's "Superthug" in 1998, reaching number 36 on the Billboard Hot 100, and gaining them widespread attention for the first time. In 1999, a friend introduced Pharrell to Kelis, they really vibed so the beginning result was producing her first album Kaleidoscope.

1998–2004: The Neptunes[link]

At this point The Neptunes were gaining a wide fanbase and audience. In 2001, The Neptunes produced Britney Spears' single, "I'm a Slave 4 U" gaining their first worldwide number one.^[12] The same year, N.E.R.D, consisting of Williams, Hugo and Haley, released their first album, In Search of..., in Europe, where the first Kelis album was better received. The album sounded very much like their previous production work; the group decided that they should make their work as N.E.R.D sound different, and re-recorded the album with the rock band Spymob. Williams and Hugo met rap duo Clipse in Virginia Beach in 1993, where they were signed to Arista Records through Williams' Star Trak Entertainment imprint.^[13][14]

Then in 2002 their re-produced album was released worldwide, and The Neptunes reached number one in the U.S. with Nelly's single, "Hot in Herre". In August of the same year, The Neptunes were named "Producers of the Year" at both The Source Awards and the Billboard Music Awards. Clipse released their commercial debut album Lord Willin' in August 2002. The album started at number one on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and number four on the Billboard 200, fueled by its first two singles, "Grindin'" and "When the Last Time", which peaked at number 34 and number 19 respectively on the Billboard Hot 100.

The Neptunes released a self-credited album called The Neptunes Present... Clones in 2003, with songs and remixes from various artists. This topped the U.S. Billboard 200 Albums Chart. The Neptunes and Williams specifically were also kept in public eye largely due to ties with Jay-Z, producing several hit singles for him and two tracks on his The Black Album. The track "Frontin'" was a big hit (the 34th biggest of 2003 according to Billboard). A survey in August 2003 found the Neptunes produced almost 20 percent of songs played on British radio at the time, a survey in the US had them at 43 percent.^[6] The same year, The Neptunes remixed the Daft Punk song Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger for the duo's poorly-received remix album Daft Club. The track also had a brief rap section performed by Williams.^[15]

N.E.R.D's second funk rock-oriented album, Fly or Die, released in March 2004. Williams' rock credentials were further bolstered by his appearance at the 2004 Grammy Awards, performing The Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There" on drums with Sting, Dave Matthews, and Vince Gill. Williams received two Grammy Awards that night, one for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical, and another for Best Pop Vocal Album for his work on Justin Timberlake's hit album Justified. They also gained their first UK number one, again with Nelly, and Flap Your Wings.

2005–2009: First album and collaborations[link]

Williams and Astronaut Leland Melvin present a montage to Quincy Jones

On September 9, 2005, Williams performed the opening single from his first solo album In My Mind, "Can I Have It Like That", featuring Gwen Stefani. The single did poorly in the US, reaching only number 48. It fared better in the UK, reaching number three. Between then and the July 25, 2006 release of "In My Mind", he released "Angel" (in Europe only), and later "Number One" with Kanye West. Several songs leaked to the internet before the album release, most notably "Mamacita" featuring Daddy Yankee, which was subsequently cut from the final version. "That Girl" featuring Snoop Dogg was the final single.

In 2006, Williams, with Chad Hugo, produced Clipse's second album Hell Hath No Fury. Most critics labeled the album Williams's best production in years, and put the duo back in the charts.^[16] A year later, Williams collaborated with Madonna, on the song "Hey You", which was available for download on the MSN website. 25 cents for each of the first one million downloads was donated to the Alliance for Climate Protection, in support of Live Earth.^[17] Later that year, Williams performed songs at the Concert for Diana on July 1, 2007. Then, on July 7, 2007, he performed at the Brazilian leg of Live Earth in Rio de Janeiro.

A second album, titled Out of My Mind, was recorded with his newly formed band "The Yessirs" featuring Questlove of The Roots. However, Williams' record label did not think that a companion album to the first would sell well.^[18] He also produced Beyoncé's version of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend". He then wrote and produced "Why Should I Be Sad" on Britney Spears' fifth studio album, Blackout. He also produced two songs from The Hives album, The Black and White Album, titled "Well All Right!" and "T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S.".

In April 2008, Madonna released her eleventh album, Hard Candy, which featured vocals from Williams and production from The Neptunes on several tracks. In June, an article in NME revealed that Williams was very interested in producing The Strokes' fourth album.^[19] Later that year, Williams worked on a remix album for Maroon 5's Call & Response.^[20]

Williams continued working with a variety of artists, including Shakira on the songs 'Did It Again', 'Why Wait', 'Good Stuff' and 'Long Time' for her sixth studio album, She Wolf. ^[21] In September 2009, Williams was credited as a co-writer and producer of the song "Fresh Out the Oven" for Jennifer Lopez.^[22] It was released as a buzz single from Lopez's seventh studio album Love? The following month, Williams made a guest appearance on French indie/electronic rapper Uffie's first album, which arrived in early 2010.^[23] In late 2009, Williams worked with the rapper Game on his fourth studio album, The R.E.D. Album.

2010–present[link]

In July 2010, Williams composed one of the soundtracks^{[dubious – discuss]} in the movie Despicable Me at the Hollywood Studio Symphony.^{[citation needed]} In October 2010, Williams and his group N.E.R.D supported Gorillaz on their Escape to Plastic Beach World Tour. On the tour, Damon Albarn recorded a song on his iPad with Williams but this was not featured on Gorillaz's album, The Fall, but it may appear on a future album.^[15] In late 2011, Williams worked on three tracks for Mike Posner's second album Sky High.^[24] In 2011, Williams collaborated with singer/composer Adam Lambert, co-writing two tracks for Lambert's album "Trespassing", which was released in May of 2012, including the title track and "Kickin' In".

In 2012, It was announced on Lupe Fiasco's website that he and Lupe will work on a collaborative album and work on Waka Flocka Flame's album Triple F Life: Friends, Fans and Family.^{[citation needed]}

Williams composed and produced the music for the 84th Academy Awards with composer Hans Zimmer.^[25]

2012: Pharrell is now collaborating with teen pop sensation, Miley Cyrus on her new album which is set for a release this year, with a single dropping this summer. Miley's new album has a slick genre of pop/hip-hop and R&B.

Musical style[link]

Pharrell did music for the Universal film Despicable Me. The film makers liked his genre of music for the movie. Williams has encompassed a broad range of genres, including hip hop, R&B, pop, rock, and funk.^[3][26] His lyrics often pertain to his childhood, family, religious faith and sexuality.^[27] In the review of Seeing Sounds by N.E.R.D, Christian Hoard of Rolling Stone said he learned nothing from his lyrics except that Williams was sexually aroused.^[28]

Williams has stated that he does not have any direct influences,^[29] but has expressed his admiration of several musicians, including Michael Jackson, J Dilla, Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Marvin Gaye, Rakim and Q-Tip.^[29][30] Williams explained that A Tribe Called Quest's 1990 album, People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, caused a "turning point" in his life, which "made me see that music was art".^[30] His style of production includes very unusual sounds, which give a feeling of being extra terrestrial. His beats have heavy percussions and synths.

Business ventures[link]

Williams met Nigo, a Japanese record producer and creator of the clothing line A Bathing Ape, in Japan and bonded^[vague] through similar interests, where they began working together on their fashion lines.^[4] Williams later co-founded the clothing brands Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream Footwear. He has a store in New York City. In 2008, he co-designed a series of jewelry ("Blason") and glasses for Louis Vuitton.^[31] He has also worked on furniture with Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin and a French manufacturer, Domeau & Pérès. One of his works, a molded plastic seat with human legs, was created because he "wanted to know what it was like to be in love." The chair depicts a sexual scene with a pair of female legs and male legs.^[32]

In 2009 Williams unveiled a collaborative sculpture with Takashi Murakami at Art Basel, which spoke to the metaphor of value.^[33]

In 2010 Williams founded Kidult, a news and entertainment website for teens. Inspired by his young fans, Williams believed they deserved a website that respected their intelligence and covered their diverse interests—from science to fashion.

In May 2011 it was announced that Williams would serve as Creative Director of Karmaloop TV alongside founder and CEO Greg Selkoe and former AMC (TV channel) president Katie McEnroe.^[34]

On August 1, 2011, Williams launched his new record label, i am Other.^[35]

Personal life[link]

In 2005 Williams was voted "Best Dressed Man in the World" by Esquire.^[36] He is a fan of the science fiction series Star Trek,^[37] as indicated by his consistent use of the Vulcan salute to signify his label name, Star Trak. He also enjoys the works of the late astronomer and science lecturer Carl Sagan, whom he calls "a genius".^[38] Williams is a skateboarder and has a half-pipe inside his home.^[39] In April 2009, Williams underwent a skin procedure for tattoo removal.^[40]

Discography[link]

Pharrell and Lupe Fiasco are currently working on a collaboration album set to be released sometime in 2012.^[41]

TBA (with Lupe Fiasco) (2012)

Awards and nominations[link]

References[link]