In March, Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke were ordered to pay $7.3 million for what a judge ruled was infringement of Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up” on their 2013 song “Blurred Lines.”
The Hollywood Reporter has obtained the video footage of Pharrell’s questioning in the case. The series of three videos show the rapper-producer visibly frustrated with the examination.
“There was a myriad of ludicrous questions, I’m sorry,” he tells the lawyer when asked about previous questioning. “When I see nonsense, I try not to waste my memory for it.”
Pharrell answers some questions, including one about bluegrass harmonies.
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“Usually in bluegrass, they use a certain chord structure, certain chord progressions, so I just did what comes naturally to mind,” he says of writing “Blurred Lines.”
His response to multiple questions is that he is “not comfortable” answering them.
“I’m not comfortable with this,” he says when asked to identify a series of music notes. “I know Every Good Boy Does Fine and FACE, but I’m not comfortable.”
He confirms he has not received college education for music notation. He also tells the examiner that he can read musical notation, but not write it. When asked to explain some of the terminology he used in previous testimony, he refers to the musicologist who is also seated at the table.
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“She knows,” Pharrell says. “You’ll have to tell her to break it down to you. You don’t need me to do that. You have a musicologist right there. It means I’m not comfortable and you have someone that’s completely apt and prepared to do it beside you.”
He is also asked if he thinks “Blurred Lines” and “Got to Give it Up” share the same bass line.
“I see when people say they feel that, I understand that,” he says, “but the truth of the matter is that silk and rayon are different things. They just feel the same.”
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For additional Pharrell coverage, watch the following DX Daily:
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