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For Hugo, producing is enough of a challenge. At 29, he is married with two kids and prefers handling the Neptunes' daily business at the band's Virginia Beach recording studio. "I don't mind being the one surrounded by tapes and buttons," he says. (It is Hugo who usually puts together the melodic skeleton of a song, while Williams works on the beats and lyrics with the artist.) "I'll put it to you this way: if we were a rock band--like Van Halen--I'd be Eddie Van Halen, the guy who just gets transported by practicing guitar riffs and learning techniques."
That would leave Williams to fill the sequined shoes of David Lee Roth, and sure enough, he's making a play. This week marks the arrival of The Neptunes Present ... Clones. The album features JayZ, Nelly, Snoop Dogg and Busta Rhymes rapping over characteristically ebullient Neptunes tracks as well as rock from N.E.R.D. and Spymob, the Neptunes' house band. It should debut at No. 1 on Billboard's album chart. But the real gift on Clones is Williams. He comes out from behind the mixing boards to sing on the album's first single, Frontin', which sounds like nothing else on the radio. Over a jumpy, lover-man R.-and-B. riff, Williams slides into a quavering falsetto and sings, "I know that I'm carrying on/never mind if I'm showing off/I was just frontin'." If Frontin' were a Prince song, it would be erotic. If it were a Biz Markie song, it would be ironic. Williams manages to make it both, and Frontin' is already No. 1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart.
When talking about becoming a star, Williams can occasionally let his idiot side take over. "I want people to know that I'm a regular guy. You've got to put that in your story. I'm not Hollywood," he says as his giant bodyguard whisks him from a tinted SUV into a Manhattan restaurant. Of course, this being Pharrell Williams, the moment can't pass without a bit of irony. "Also put in your story that I'm single and nice?" Done.