Not Your Typical N.E.R.D.: Pharrell Williams, Bound by Chords

More cachet came from producing "SuperThug" for the hard-core rapper Noreaga, and then the jobs and money started pouring in. By 2001, Williams and Hugo, along with a friend known only as Shay, had resurrected their high school band, N.E.R.D. (it stands for "nobody ever really dies"). Their debut, "In Search of . . ." drew raves from critics but didn't sell anything close to a typical Neptunes offering.

"Fly or Die" was supposed to be the band's breakthrough, and N.E.R.D. has been touring hard to generate buzz for the album. Williams, who is the most dynamic and outgoing of the trio, has done round after round of interviews. At the moment, though, he is sitting at a lunch table eating crab legs, and he barely has time to eat, let alone muse about his favorite songs.

"Sorry," says Pharrell's harried publicist, who has been negotiating with the video director for some spare time. "This will happen. I promise."

Before it does, the whole crew packs up and relocates about a mile away, to another neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley, to a recreation center with a couple acres of green grass near a bustling intersection. Late in the afternoon, a shot is set up on a nearby street, part of a vignette that has Pharrell, wearing a high school varsity jacket, chasing a bus that supposedly is carrying his girlfriend out of town. He has a couple of minutes before they actually need him to start chasing. So for the moment, he stands in a parking lot, signing the shirts and hats of 12-year-olds who recognize him. His publicist finally collars him, and he turns around and introduces himself like he's at a board meeting.

"Nice to meet you," he says, "and thanks for your patience."

The formality aside, Williams could pass for a college senior, though as he climbs into an SUV for an impromptu, two-person listening party, he has the affectless manner of a poker player who doesn't want to give any hints about his hand. He begins tearing the cellophane off the CDs bearing his top 10 songs.

"You got some great [stuff]," he says, in apparent awe.

Yeah. You chose them.

"Uh-huh," he says. This evidently jogs Pharrell's memory, but his first selection suggests that he didn't fully grasp the My Top Ten concept when he devised this list. It's "I Still Love You," a song that the Neptunes produced for a hip-hop girl group called 702.

You picked one of your own songs as an all-time fave?

"Yeah," he says, enraptured now by the sound of his own vocals, which turn up on the song's chorus. "I just like the emotion of it. You'll find that a lot of my picks are based on the fact that the songs are emotional and they take you on an emotional ride."

Williams switches discs, and "The Flower Called Nowhere" by London's Stereolab is now playing. He sinks into the seat and is silent for a minute.

"When I hear great music, I tune out whoever I'm talking to," he says quietly. "I can't help it. If something's crazy and I ain't never heard it before, I'm locked in. If it's greatness, I'm oblivious to everything. You could be smacking my girlfriend, I can't help it."

Williams, it's soon clear, isn't kidding. He zones when each of his most treasured tracks is playing, and it takes prodding to get him to say much of anything.

"I was in a restaurant in Norfolk when I heard this, and I almost killed everybody in there to get the CD," he says as "Flower" finishes up. The song bobs up and down with the vocals of lead singer Laetitia Sadier, whose voice crests and falls like a flute in a long and elegant solo.