ComplexCon is so star-studded that barely anyone even mentions the sight of a bearded André 3000 in a lift. It is attended by thousands of kids buying limited-edition tees and rappers including Rick Ross and Migos. He’s here for a performance at ComplexCon, a two-day festival and exhibition featuring streetwear, art, food, performances and panels. Two weeks after the London playback, I meet Williams in the bowels of the Long Beach Convention Center in Los Angeles. It was a dark time, but I feel like we’re in the middle of the sun right now.” “When you fall, it’s not only how and when you get up, but it’s about really looking at yourself. “It was tough but you need those times,” Pharrell reflects. For seven years, they weren’t ready to return to N.E.R.D. It was a tough fucking time.” Instead, Pharrell went off and became a massive pop star in his own right, Chad continued to produce for the likes of Earl Sweatshirt and the Internet, while Shae managed a couple of local acts from Virginia. The label wanted uptempo records and we acquiesced. “That’s when we started losing ourselves. “I mean look at the fucking title: Nothing,” he groans. With N.E.R.D’s distinct musical and sartorial style – which was always more skater boy than rap star – they inspired a whole generation who were drawn to their individuality and oddness, defying the cultural stereotypes that were imposed on them elsewhere.Įven Pharrell admits that they hated the later work. Formed in 1999, the trio were critical for a wave of pioneering modern artists such as Frank Ocean and Tyler, the Creator (such is the latter’s adoration of the group, he compared being introduced to Pharrell as “meeting God” in 2011. It is a bold new direction for the band, who rarely made social consciousness central to their music, even if N.E.R.D’s very presence was political in itself. The question: “Why the politics now, Pharrell?” elicits a simple, if frustratingly vague response: “If not now, when? If not me, who?” he says. Perhaps back then we were more cheerful? Three years after Happy, the UK’s best-selling single of 2014 (more than 1.9m physical sales to date) and the world feels like an overload of sadness: a mess of Trump and Weinstein, terror threats, police brutality, economic uncertainty and ecological disasters. It’s their most political and ambitious album to date, and for Pharrell it heralds a particularly candid incarnation for the man who chirpily encouraged us in 2013 to “clap along” if we felt like “happiness is the truth”. The new release, No_One Ever Really Dies, is a return to form for N.E.R.D.