Long before Pharrell Williams and Pusha T were Grindin’ Coffee—the pair launched a new coffee line in collaboration with Lavazza last month—they were kids in Virginia Beach, skipping class to watch MTV and make music at each other’s houses.
“Probably the breadth of our friendship was based on music,” Williams reflects, seated opposite his longtime pal and collaborator. “Whether it was Pearl Jam or it was Juvenile, when they first came out, or A-ha, whatever it was that moved us, that was the subject of conversation every morning before school.”
“My earliest memory of our friendship was acting like we went to school that day,” Pusha T adds.
In a new interview with Vogue, Williams and Pusha T reminisce on some of their best-loved projects, from Clipse’s debut single, “The Funeral,” with its video directed by Marc Klasfeld, to “Chains & Whips,” which Clipse and Kendrick Lamar recorded at Williams’s studio inside Louis Vuitton’s headquarters in Paris, overlooking the Seine. (Williams then gleefully remembers Pusha T and Malice walking the Louis Vuitton men’s show set on the Pont Neuf, with Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and the Arnault family all looking on.) They also talk style (Pusha T loves a luxury tracksuit moment); compare and contrast Clipse’s 2025 album Let God Sort Em Out with Hell Hath No Fury, from 2006; make a strong case for waking up early (it’s all about mental acuity!); and muse on the songs they wish they’d produced or had a verse on. (The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Who Shot Ya” is one.)
Watch the full, rollicking conversation above.
Director: Rob Markman
Director of Photography: Kevin C. Spence
Editor: Michael Suyeda
Senior Producer: Bety Dereje
Camera Operator: Paola Esquivel-Oliveros
Gaffer: Réal Gill
Audio: Tyson Dai
Production Assistant: Quinton Johnson
Production Coordinator: Tanía Jones
Production Manager: Kristen Helmick
Line Producer: Jen Santos
Assistant Editor: Justin Symonds
Post Production Coordinator: Holly Frew
Supervising Editor: Kameron Key
Post Production Supervisor: Alexa Deutsch
Global Entertainment Director: Sergio Kletnoy
Executive Producer: Rahel Gebreyes
Senior Director, Video: Romy van den Broeke
Interim Director, Creative Development, Video: Ella Mielniczenko
Senior Director, Programming: Linda Gittleson
VP, Video Programming: Thespena Guatieri
Filmed on Location: Ludlow House, Soho House