S. Samuel
The Neptunes' Pharrell Williams continues to add onto his extensive resume, as he has unveiled plans to release a book in the near future entitled Places & Spaces I've Been.
While details are still coming together, the music hitmaker has teamed with fashion designer Ambra Medda for his latest project.
Given his air miles, it makes perfect sense that the Virginia Beach native is working on a book with Ambra Medda, co-founder and director of Design Miami and Design Miami/Basel — “Places & Spaces I’ve Been.” Having worked with Williams in the past, Paper magazine’s Kim Hastreiter said they will no doubt work together again. “He is gracious, smart, superhandsome and has an amazing style and eye,” she said. (Women’s Wear Daily)
Not alone, rap veteran Nas has plans to drop his own book next year.
Nas is taking his war of words to the printed page. The rapper, known for his million-selling album Illmatic and his public feuds with Jay-Z and Bill O’Reilly, has a memoir coming out in the fall of 2012. HarperCollins, which is owned by News Corp., announced Monday the book will be called It Ain’t Too Hard to Tell, and co-written with Touré. Nas’ other records include It Was Written and Life is Good. (Crains New York)
In fall 2010, Jay-Z’s Decoded contributor dream hampton spoke to SOHH about the trend of rappers spilling their thoughts in novel form.
“Even as a writer, I don’t privilege the written word over the [spoken] word. I don’t think that a culture is less valid because it’s primarily oral and I don’t think that all of these hip-hop books validate or make hip-hop more real or more important. Hip-hop would be just as important as it is without anybody writing a book. With that said, there are a million ways that, because of someone like Jay-Z, hip-hop is becoming more formalized. And that was inevitable. We’re 30 years into this at least and it was just inevitable that hip-hop would make its way into universities and [grade school], and that it would be used to teach texts and all of the things that’s evolved to do.” (SOHH Guest Star)
Williams’ Places & Spaces I’ve Been collaborator Ambra Medda is most known for her fashion background.
Ambra Medda, the co-founder and director of Design Miami and Design Miami/Basel, the annual design fairs started in 2005, has brought together an international A-list of design galleries — and design collectors — under one roof (or, as was the case last year, under one Aranda/Lasch-designed tent). Not even 30 years old, Medda is as worldly as they come. She was born in Greece, grew up in Milan and London, studied in Beijing, worked and lived in New York and Miami, and is currently furnishing an apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Design is in her DNA: her mother started the London gallery Themes and Variations, mixing work by 20th-century Italian heavy hitters like Gio Ponti and Ico Parisi with contemporaries like Tom Dixon. “I thought I wanted to be an Asian-art dealer,” Medda says. “But I just couldn’t shake the design thing.” Her latest project, Craft Punk, is a collaboration with Fendi during the Milan furniture fair that brings together 11 designers working in as many different media (weaving, welding, whatever) for a raucous performance-based event. (New York Times)
Check out some recent Pharrell Williams footage down below:
