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Pharrell Williams

American record producer and songwriter (born 1973)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ14313
Source-derived summary

Pharrell Lanscilo Williams ( fə-REL; born April 5, 1973) is an American musician, songwriter, record producer and fashion designer. He initially became known as one half of the music production duo the Neptunes, which he established with Chad Hugo in 1992. Fifteen of their productions have peaked within the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100, which includes four songs that peaked atop the chart. The two also formed the rock and hip-hop band N.E.R.D. with Shay Haley in 1999, for which Williams served as lead vocalist. He has been regarded as one of the most influential producers in modern popular music. He has also contributed music to all Despicable Me animated films.

Williams co-founded the record label Star Trak Entertainment with Hugo in 2001, as an imprint of Arista Records. Williams's 2003 debut single, "Frontin'" (featuring Jay-Z), peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100. He then signed with Virgin and Interscope Records to release his debut studio album, In My Mind (2006), which peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 despite mixed critical reception. Williams produced and guest performed alongside T.I. on Star Trak signee Robin Thicke's 2013 single "Blurred Lines", which peaked atop the Billboard Hot 100 and received diamond certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Editorial summary

“Pharrell Williams” enters the record as american record producer and songwriter (born 1973). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Pharrell, Williams and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1973, 1992, 1999, 2001—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Pharrell, Williams and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Pharrell Williams” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Pharrell, Williams and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q14313. The first chronological checks are 1973, 1992, 1999 and 2001.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Pharrell Williams” 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.