Rock Star

As The Neptunes, the team of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo produced tracks for Jay-Z ("I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)"), Ol' Dirty Bastard ("Got Your Money"), Britney Spears ("I'm A Slave 4 U"), and several other major artists. In 2002 they released an album of their own, In Search Of..., as N.E.R.D (No-one Ever Really Dies), with "Rock Star" their second single. Heavy on distortion and aggression, it merged nu-metal and rap in a sound that was distinctly 2002.

On this track, Williams and Hugo take aim at the posers, declaring that they are the real rock stars here. Rap artists have a long history of announcing their rock dominance; Run-D.M.C. planted their flag as "King of Rock" back in 1985. "Rock" is more of a state of mind in this context, rather than a genre.

Pharrell told Rolling Stone: "'Rock Star' is about power. In rap music, there's a lot of songs about fakes and wannabes, but there's not a lot of those songs in rock."