Pharrell Williams On Fatherhood, Video Games and Basketball
"He's changed my world," he said of his son Rocket.
-- Pharrell Williams was just named as curator of the soundtrack for NBA 2K15 and the world-renowned artist couldn't be more humble about the offer to work on it.
"It was something that I accepted, but I couldn't believe my name got tossed in the hat for it, I'm honored," Pharrell told reporters during a press conference in New York City for the new game.
Williams, 41, who is a Grammy winner known for a slew of hits, including "Happy" and "Blurred Lines," among many others, said he took a crazy new approach when trying to decide what songs and artists to put in the soundtrack for the game.
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He gathered all the women from his staff and had them weigh in since he was following in the footsteps of LeBron James and Jay Z, who curated the soundtrack in the past.
"They know so much more about the sport than I do," he admitted. "I'm not screaming like touchdown, but after free throw, lay up and couple dunks ... I know what a crossover is but don't know how to do one."
He continued, "These are girls that play the game and ... their boyfriends play or their friends play, I thought it would be such an interesting twist to have the girls weight in on the song list, they listen to it just as much, I tried to pick an alternative approach ... How do you follow up LeBron and Jay? I gotta take a different route. I don't know I just thought it'd be cool."
Even though Pharrell said it was his friends who were big into games when he was growing up, he said his son is into tech and showing his famous dad how to use all these fun games and gadgets is one of the ways "he's changed my world."
"My son teaches me, it's crazy, he teaches me [about games]," he said.
He said Rocket Williams, 5, also shows him the iPad and other cool forms of tech.
"Yeah, it's crazy," he said. "This is one of those times in your life when you're like think about that one interview when someone asked you a serious question and that just hit me just now, when you asked me about my son and my answer to you is 'He teaches me,' like that's bizarre to me."
As for the songs on the track, gamers can expect bands like System of a Down and artists like Strafe.
So, does Pharrell plan to do more with 2K and more with video games?
"Looks like there should be more things," he said. "I was just talking to them [representatives from 2K] off camera about an idea ...I've always wanted to do something in the Sims world too."