Number One (Pharrell Williams song)
song by Pharrell

"Number One" is a song by American musician Pharrell Williams featuring American rapper Kanye West, released by Star Trak Entertainment and Virgin Records on August 21, 2006 as the third single from Williams' debut studio album, In My Mind (2006). A synth-heavy love song, it was written by both performers. Production was handled by Williams, while West acts as the song's hype man and performs the third verse.
"Number One" became the second song from In My Mind to enter the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at number 57. The song was praised by critics, in contrast from its parent album.
Music video
The music video was directed by Hype Williams, and features models Selita Ebanks, Miranda Kerr, and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. There are two versions: one is a color version which features many bright colors and the other is in black and white.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Number One (Pharrell Williams song)” as song by Pharrell. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as song by Pharrell. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3879352. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2006.
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This entry incorporates text from “Number One (Pharrell Williams song)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.