Piece by Piece

-Dada. -Yes, sir.

-Dada. -Yes, sir.

Careful. Don't crash.

You okay?

Yeah, but you're not supposed to have that

-on the table, buddy. -Dada.

So, can you do me a favor and tell everybody

I'm trying to do an interview for the film?

Okay, babe.

But just tell the kids to be-- quiet down, like...

-And good morning, brother. -Hey.

-Are we good? -Yeah. All set.

Okay.

-Hey. -Hey, how you doing, man?

Good to see you. How's it going?

-We're recording? Yeah? -Yeah, yeah.

Okay, cool.

Quiet on the set!

You know what I always thought about?

What's that?

What if, like...

What if nothing's new?

What if life is like a LEGO set?

And you can put 'em together whatever way you want.

But you're borrowing from colors that already existed.

Does that make sense?

Um...

You know what would be cool is if, like,

we told my story with LEGO pieces.

-Seriously? -Yes.

-LEGO? -Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Just imagine all the color that would bring to it.

Sure.

-Limitless color. -Mm-hmm.

This is the best way I can really be my purest self...

-Yeah. -...without feeling weird.

Okay.

Man, I'm saying just...

Just be open. Just be open.

So, what would you be wearing in this interview, then?

Dad hat, T-shirt, shorts,

on a yellow electric bike.

'Kay.

Moving on.

Here's an easy question.

Well, maybe it's easy, maybe it's hard.

Where are you from?

I'm from the mud.

Close to the fabled Atlantis.

I just became obsessed with, like, water, you know?

And, like, King Neptune.

I feel like my obsession with water

triggered something in me.

Different kinds of abilities.

I don't know where it's from.

But I knew I was different.

Really?

I've always grappled with that.

I'm from Virginia Beach.

The beach was less than a mile from Atlantis,

the housing project where I grew up.

The suburbs thought this was the hood,

but really this place was magical.

You'd just witness music bouncing off the walls.

And the Blue Angels, they would fly over

my housing project.

We lived in the crash zone,

so we had the best view.

You couldn't tell me that life was not amazing.

And I loved music.

Like, everybody loves music, but I'm realizing

I had a different kind of relationship with it.

Like, it was--

literally was mesmerizing to me.

I didn't even know that I was mesmerized.

I just thought that's what all Black kids did.

I thought we all just stared into the speaker like...

Whoa.

I was seeing colors.

It's called synesthesia.

It's not something that you see with your physical eyes.

It's something that you see in your mind's eye.

All the Stevie music would do it to me.

Beautiful hues of light cascading.

I would just start the record over

and start it over and over and over.

Doing whatever it took to continue to make it happen.

Man, he was way out there.

He must have got it from his mama.

Oh, my God.

And me.

As parents from a project,

we needed to be encouraging and tell him like...

You can do anything you want to do.

People are able to accomplish things

because they work hard at what it is that they do.

That's my mom.

We basically lived in the same neighborhood.

We were kids, so it was like, "Hey, we're gonna ride our bikes

to Mount Trashmore."

And I was the kid

in the neighborhood with the skateboard.

Yeah.

We explored everywhere.

We would go to neighborhoods

and point at massive houses and dream.

Virginia Beach Oceanfront was

the congregating place for anybody

who was a creative.

The best rappers there made a name.

You have Timbaland, who's known as DJ Timmy Tim.

We all kind of knew each other from school.

Yeah, I knew Timbaland.

I knew Timbaland 'cause we were in class together,

and he was cool with Missy.

And that's how I met Missy, through Tim.

At the time, we weren't thinking

we were going to be artists.

We just loved doing music.

In Virginia, we've been saying for years

there's something in the water.

They always say there's something in the water,

but I think it's just Virginia itself.

But I wasn't the best student.

I found school difficult, you know?

You go from being in sixth grade,

where you only really had two teachers,

but seventh grade was like

you had seven different teachers.

It was just too overwhelming.

Hey! Earth to Pharrell.

Stop daydreaming and get to work.

I have, like, anxiety about it

and refuse to go back.

So, I was in seventh grade twice.

The teacher contacted my mom and said,

"Look, he's got enough credit to pass."

And my mom was like, "No, he needs to...

he needs to do it again."

The boy is smart. He's brilliant.

But he only did enough to get by.

Do you feel like you fit in as a kid?

No.

I was detached.

And more in dreamland all the time,

because oftentimes that's all I had, was my imagination.

Soul...

Train!

I wanted to escape.

Hello and welcome aboard.

You're right on time for another ride on the big train.

Live long and prosper.

TV, for me, became like this magical place

where, like, my imagination would just run super wild.

Even in the outskirts of our own solar system,

we humans have barely begun our explorations.

Carl Sagan's way of looking at life

was amazing to me.

I felt like everybody else was like,

"Oh, that's an odd child. He's odd."

And that crushed my spirit.

So I didn't know what the hell I was gonna do.

I remember his grandmother

telling him that she had a dream.

Pharrell was lifted up.

He was suspended in the air,

way up in the sky among the stars.

And she said...

God has given you a special gift,

but to whom much is given much is required.