Pharrell Reveals He Initially Wrote His Hit Song “Frontin” for Prince

In a recent interview for the cover of Clash magazine‘s summer 2018 issue, Pharrell Williams revealed some unknown tidbits about his career.

This summer marked the 10 year anniversary of N*E*R*D’s Seeing Sounds and the 15th anniversary of Pharrell’s 2003 solo hit, “Frontin.”

When asked about his views on collaborating in music, the 45-year-old super-producer and musician  responded, “I’ve learned so much in collaboration. I prefer to work with masters because then I’m actually learning.”

He also revealed who he’d intended on collaborating with on projects that ended up taking alternate avenues.

All of my biggest songs were songs that I did with or for other people. Collaboration has always been part of my DNA. And, to be clear and to be honest, songs that I ended up putting out by myself were always songs that I wrote for other people. I made ‘Frontin’ for Prince, and even ‘Happy’, I wrote that for CeeLo [Green].

READ: Pharrell was the Best Man at Pusha-T’s Wedding

He added, “Still to this day I feel like CeeLo would have done a much better job on ‘Happy’ than me. His voice just really is something else, and I like that he’s a character. And imagine if Prince had sung ‘Frontin’? I mean, come on!”

Read the full interview at Clash.