Pharrell Williams Gives Advice About the Pitfalls of the Music Industry at His Adidas Film Premiere: “It’s Crazy”
A week after news broke of Pharrell Williams and director Michel Gondrey’s decision to shutter their highly anticipated musical Golden for Universal from its scheduled May 9 release, Williams premiered another film in Atlanta. All Day I Dream About Is Sport is a short film made with London-born photographer/filmmaker Gabriel Moses for Division and Adidas, with the title, when made into an acronym, playing off the sneaker brand’s name. Described as a “visual love letter to West African culture steeped in the everyday experience of life in Senegal,” it’s nothing like Williams’ big screen musical, which starred Janelle Monae, Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Halle Bailey. Rather, it puts a spotlight on the people of Dakar.
Those featured in the 20-minute film, which began its weeklong screening on Le Cinema Friday, span from an unborn child captured via ultrasound to the elderly to demonstrate the challenges of living. At the same time, the short encapsulates beauty and joy, highlighting various athletics along the way, including rowing, martial arts and swimming. Mostly shot in black and white, the film sporadically pops into color.
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Williams also helms an eclectic score that includes the standout “Mike Tyson Blow to the Face.” Amid a solidly African soundscape, this is an American contribution from his one-time protégé Pusha T, who attended the premiere on the High Museum campus (also sponsored by Soho House) in Atlanta. The song, stunningly paired with a scene of a bare-chested, cowboy hat-wearing ravishly dark Senegalese man galloping on a horse, officially hit streaming Feb. 17.
“It was one of those things I [thought] would [add] good texture, a good alien texture, juxtaposed to everything else that was in there, which was sourced African music,” Williams explained to Complex EIC Aria Hughes and the audience at the post-screening Q&A. The song came from him working on new music for the rapper who arguably started the dismantling of Drake with his 2018 diss track revealing the Canadian superstar had a son.
The Q&A included influential power player and event co-sponsor James Whitner (whose Whitaker Group owns several boutiques, including A Ma Maniére), and was attended by Morehouse College and Spelman students (known as SpelHouse). Later that evening, Williams — an Oscar-nominated musician and film producer, Louis Vuitton Men’s creative director, 13-time Grammy winner, entrepreneur and philanthropist — was honored by Morehouse for his excellence in arts and entertainment.
Back at the panel, Williams, whose autobiographical film Piece by Piece uses LEGO bricks to detail his rise, offered some career guidance. “I know your parents are telling you one thing, but it would be nice if you could try to find a vocation connected to something that you love so much that you would do it for free,” the father of four advised, adding how much he loves his job.
Asked by Hughes about how he collaborated with Moses on their film, Williams gave insight into how he partners with others in all creative endeavors. “I’m a different kind of collaborator,” he said. “I reduce myself in the room when I’m with the talent, because I want the talent to be the talent. …My job is to hold up the mirror and then when you find strength in yourself, in terms of confidence, to be able to approach your craft in a unique way that you’ve not done before, and if it’s successful, then we’ve won.”
He used Atlanta’s own Andre 3000 — one half of recent 2025 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees Outkast — to further drive home his point. “The reason why he’s so great is because he had it in him to try things when other people wouldn’t, and he would be so good at it and he would bring his hood, his Blackness and his unique experience on this planet with him within a verse but just attack it in so many ways. Not everybody wakes up in the morning and is Andre,” he said. “Not everybody can do that. Some people really do need producers to do that and that’s where I fall.”
A Spelman student asked the only audience question of the afternoon. Referencing Williams as “a cultural architect” while recognizing that “music has always been a vessel for storytelling in your career,” the student posed a lengthy question-slash-commentary about the process of creating soundtracks, noting how creating great ones appeared more difficult than ever, among other things. In turn the “Happy” singer’s response to the “multi-sided question” was long but candid.
“The space of soundtracks is a very challenging space, especially in an industry that was never really set up for us to win,” he responded, touching on racial and financial obstacles as he continued. “None of those industries are set up for us to win,” he said, adding, “Contracts are literally like the craziest mazes ever. They’re labyrinths of information, and you literally have to be a lawyer to be able to read them fluently.
“[I]t’s worse for people of color. Sometimes it looks easier, but it’s worse for us,” he continued. “If you’ve been in the business as long as we have, you learn the first ten years is just you getting run over, over and over again, and just thinking there aren’t good people in the world and there are, but they have to prove themselves good to you. Once you start thinking about things from that perspective, once you get to a conversation like soundtracks, the only thing you’re thinking about is winning everybody over with the best music you can make to change the conversation.”
“You’re also in an industry where they just trendhop all day long. They trendhop, like they go from lap to lap to lap, it’s crazy,” he ranted, using musicals as an example as having a “dead period,” and “now it’s all the rage.”
At the reception he could not attend, students received his oversized $200 Pharrell x Adidas Superstar 92 sneakers limitedly released in the Atlanta’s A Ma Maniére location that day and the 7D Gel Facial Set from his skincare line Humanrace valued at $85.
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