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Pharrell Williams is gearing up for the release of an upcoming coffee-table book called Pharrell: The Places and Spaces I've Been, in which he showcases various interviews with celebs ranging from Buzz Aldrin to Kanye West to Anna Wintour to Jay-Z.
"First we got to go back to before grunge and why grunge happened. 'Hair bands' dominated the airwaves and rock became more about looks than about actual substance and what it stood for—the rebellious spirit of youth....That's why 'Teen Spirit' rang so loud because it was right on point with how everyone felt, you know what I'm saying?" -- Jay-ZSpin.com got their hands on a copy, and highlight one specific piece in the book, in which Pharrell interviews Jay-Z. But, rather than Jay discussing what he's done, they have a conversation about Nirvana, the 1990s Seattle grunge-rock band that changed the landscape of music with one song, "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
Skateboard P asks Hov where he was when he first heard the classic single, to which he replied that he was actually in P's home state of Virginia. But, Jay was more interested in why it happened, rather than what he was going at the time.
During their conversation, Jay talked about the impact the band had on pop culture, derailing the popularity of hip-hop for a moment, and why it rang so loud among the youth generation at the time.
"First we got to go back to before grunge and why grunge happened," said Jay. "'Hair bands' dominated the airwaves and rock became more about looks than about actual substance and what it stood for—the rebellious spirit of youth....That's why 'Teen Spirit' rang so loud because it was right on point with how everyone felt, you know what I'm saying? It was weird because hip-hop was becoming this force, then grunge music stopped it for one second, ya know? Those 'hair bands' were too easy for us to take out; when Kurt Cobain came with that statement it was like, 'We got to wait awhile.'"
Despite being full immersed in hip-hop at the time, Jay says it was always difficult for him to ignore musicians who were making noise at any time during his career... and of course, Cobain was one of those figures.
"I have always been a person who was curious about the music and when those forces come on the scene, they are inescapable," Jay says. "Can't take your eyes off them, can't stop listening to them. [Cobain] was one of those figures. I knew we had to wait for a second before we became that dominant force in music."
Pharrell: The Places and Spaces I've Been drops October 16th
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