Pharrell Williams is the most in-demand man in music, says Ben Machell in The Times (U.K.). As a producer and a performer, he has churned out nonstop hits for Beyoncé, Daft Punk, Robin Thicke, and other stars. But Williams wasn’t always so popular. Growing up in a rough area of Virginia Beach, Va., his love of superhero comics, science fiction, and “white” punk music marked him as a geeky outsider. “I was just into different things, man,” says Williams, 40. But a teacher spotted his talent for music and helped him enroll at a school for gifted children. “I didn’t see myself as gifted, but everyone else was. It was like, there were kids who could shoot laser beams out of their eyes. That’s what it felt like. You’d be around a fourth-grader who is painting like Van Gogh. Ten-year-old pianists playing this amazing [stuff]. I learned that being different was more than okay—it was great.” Williams is now building a $35 million youth center in his old neighborhood, to nurture creative talents. “When I was a kid, the coolest thing you could be was either a basketball player or a [drug dealer]. It’s different now. Smart is the new cool. These days, kids want to be Mark Zuckerberg. A hustler is not going to change the world.”
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