By Scott T. Sterling
Pharrell Williams has come under fire this year for making bold political statements.
Back in July, the “Happy” singer was taken to task for his commentary regarding what he called “the new black” during an interview with Oprah Winfrey, and more recently, Williams ruffled feathers with quotes to Ebony magazine calling slain Missouri teen Michael Brown’s actions caught on videotape allegedly stealing in a convenience store as “bully-ish,” and that he was “asking for trouble” when he didn’t follow Officer Darren Wilson’s demand to move to the sidewalk.
Backstage at this year’s We Can Survive concert, Williams’ thoughts were squarely on feminism while discussing “Spark the Fire,” the new Gwen Stefani single that he produced.
“About Gwen and that song, ‘Spark the Fire,’ the coolest part of the whole thing?” he said. “The sound and the direction we really worked hard on, but I think lyrically, what she’s saying in that song about feminism and about women standing up for themselves, and standing together… because part of the problem with feminism is not just the men, there’s some certain women who pull other women down when they see women making advances. I think when we see the unity that Gwen is promoting there, it’s a rebellious unity, but it’s a positive one.
Related: Gwen Stefani Teams with Pharrell for Texting-Tastic ‘Spark the Fire’ Video: Watch
“It’s time for the female species to no longer be repressed, oppressed or suppressed,” he continued. “Masculinity has done a lot of damage to this planet. I think it’s time to give women a shot. At the end of the day, all women hold hands right now and say, ‘you know what? We kind of don’t like the way you guys are doing the planet. No more babies.’ That’s the end of humanity. I think women need to be treated with that kind of honor and that kind of privilege that we have to survive. No matter what your sexual orientation is, you came from a woman’s body. So we owe them a lot.”
Williams went on to reiterate the importance of Stefani’s new single in regards to this new evolution of feminism, and cement his choice for the President of the United States in 2016.
“We’ve got a lot of catching up to do, and I think ‘Spark the Fire’ is going to be one of the first songs to do that,” Williams said. “I think that our next president should be a female. I think it should be Hillary (Clinton). It’s just time. If 75 percent of our world leaders were women, we wouldn’t be fighting so much. There wouldn’t be so much context lost. Women know how to talk to each other beyond language. They’re the closest things to music. It doesn’t matter the language, it matters the connotation.
“I think Gwen is onto something super special, and I’m so honored to be a part of that song.”
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