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Pharrell Williams has been catching heat recently over his cover art for his new album, ‘G I R L.’ The artwork has been deemed racist by many critics who believed that none of the women appearing on the cover were African-American. Skateboard P says they got it all wrong.
In an interview with the Breakfast Club, the ‘Blurred Lines’ producer responded to the criticism that his cover should have featured women who are black.
In fact, Williams says there is a black woman on the LP’s cover who appears on his far left.
“Man, they jumped the gun because the one I’m closest to is black,” he states. “She’s a black girl from Wisconsin that I used to date 12 years ago.”
“It must just suck for people to just look at something and to assume they know what’s going on,” he adds. “And if they just bother to listen to my album they would know that my album was an ode to women, period.”
Williams insists he understands the problematic issue of the lack of black women of all hues being represented in pop culture. He maintains he’s not colorist and that his album celebrates women of all colors.
“The one thing I’m trying to help in changing [with my album] is this crazy statuesque standard of you gotta be white, waif and thin in order to be beautiful,” he says. “No matter what color you are, what size you are, what you are in to, your sexual orientation, I respect you as a women because without you none of us would be here.”
But unfortunately, they looked at the cover and they didn’t see what they felt like … what their definition [of black is],” he added. “She is a light-skinned black woman so what are we talking about?”
Skateboard P insists that he’s not upset at people debating about his album cover. But he also reiterated that he loves black women.
“I’m not mad ’cause I understand that plight,” he says. “My dad is a dark-skinned man. Have I lived it specifically? Yeah, I’m a black man.”
“It’s just reported that I’m the first black person to go No. 1 on pop radio since Rihanna, ” he continues. “But then you are going to shoot at me? I’m going turn 41 in April. Of course I’m doing this for us. My mom is a black woman that is a huge part of my business. My business is run by another black woman and I’m married to a black woman. What are you talking about?”
Overall, Williams says that his album reaffirms the message that all women are beautiful and he hopes that people can hear and see his good intentions.
In response to Pharrell’s comments, Dream Hampton, who initially kicked off the skin color conversation with her tweet, wrote on her timeline:
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