Boycotters ask Pharrell to delay Woolies trip
Williams will use his fame -- and talent -- for good as he attempts to save the Earth, writes Oliver Roberts
WOOLWORTHS is forging ahead with its deal to bring US music and fashion icon Pharrell Williams to South Africa.
This follows calls by a Palestine solidarity group for Williams to delay the trip until its row with Woolworths is resolved.
Hours after the retailer announced details of its collaboration with the musician, the Boycott Divestment and Sanction organisation called on Williams to hold off until Woolworths agreed to its demand to withdraw Israeli products from its shelves. The organisation has been running the campaign for months.
Williams was announced as the retailer’s style director for upcoming initiatives.
But BDS spokesman Kwara Kekana said the organisation would write to Williams to ask him to reconsider. “For now we want him to postpone the collaboration until Woolworths ends its trade with Israel. We are planning to write him a letter. Depending on his response, we will launch a public campaign.”
Woolworths, which previously roped in supermodels Alek Wek and Candice Swanepoel for some of its campaigns, said the deal with Williams was going ahead. In a statement, the company said less than 1% of its food products were sourced from Israel.
“We respect our customers’ right to make individual purchasing choices, which is why we clearly label every product’s country of origin and fully comply with government guidelines. Woolworths abhors violence and loss of life, particularly of children, in any circumstances and we are deeply saddened by the tragic consequences of the ongoing conflict in Gaza.”
Williams announced details of his trip to South Africa to his 3.6 million followers around the world on Twitter on the same day Woolworths let the cat out of the bag.
IT’S not often one gets 20 minutes to chat to a superstar. And it’s especially rare that said superstar is not only humble and supremely polite, he’s deep too. Very deep.
The Sunday Times was given an exclusive interview with Pharrell Williams at a studio in Los Angeles recently and, despite having just finished a long day of shooting, the man looked you in the eye and considered every question as if it was the first time he’d been asked it.
Slighter than you imagine, Williams also has a quietness, a shyness even, that almost makes him disappear in a room full of people. But once you’re in his presence, you’re in his presence. Ask him a question about a relatively simple subject such as sustainability and the next thing he’s off on a whole other tangent about the course each of our lives take to get us where we belong.
Open, thankful and profound, Williams is a man on a mission to use his enormous influence to change things for the good.
As part of a multifaceted collaboration with Woolworths, and in his capacity as style director for the brand, Williams will be visiting South Africa in September and a school singing group from somewhere in the country will perform with him at a private concert in Johannesburg for the chain’s customers. In the coming months, schools can submit their performances and Williams will select the winning group.
Williams — who is a judge on the US talent show The Voice — said that what goes into a good pair of pipes is a mix of technique and feeling.
“There are certain people who sing and don’t have any technique — but they feel. That can be amazing, but for some people it’s an acquired taste. Some people sing well, but have no feeling. It’s 50/50, but it mostly relies on feeling; if you don’t have any feeling then it doesn’t matter.”
Williams, whose hit Happy was nominated for an Academy Award for best original song and inspired thousands of tribute videos on YouTube, visited South Africa in 2006 and 2011 and said he left each time with his heart “filled with warmth”.
ECO-FRIENDLY: Pharrell Williams wants to offset his carbon footprint with the Bionic Yarn range
With global warming activist Al Gore, Williams announced in January that Cape Town would be one of seven host cities on seven continents for the Live Earth Concert on June 18.
“Live Earth is about harmonising humanity,” Williams said in Los Angeles. “This time it’s just . . . it’s gonna be fun. We’re putting something together to show what we can do as a species.”
As well as the singing competition, Woolworths is launching a range of Bionic Yarn Tshirts in conjunction with the US star. Bionic Yarn is a thread made from recycled plastic pollutants found in the planet’s oceans. Williams is Bionic Yarn’s creative director, but thankfully he is not one of those self-righteous celeb greenies who pretend to be more ecofriendly than they really are.
“I work with Bionic Yarn because my daily life is not the activity of a die-hard tree-hugger,” he said. “I mean, we love them [tree-huggers] but I’m not that. What I’m trying to do is just be another digit on the scale of doing what’s right, and I am just doing my best to offset my carbon footprint because that’s what we all should do. If we could all look after the world in the same way we cut our grass, that would be interesting. But we don’t do that. We think on a granular level about what to do tomorrow, about what’s going on next door, we don’t think about what we have to do 10 years from now, for our planet.”
Williams andWoolworths are calling on South Africa’s young design talent to create original, striking T-shirt designs that raise awareness about the issues that affect the planet and a sustainable future.
Not only will each of the winning designers win R25 000 cash, but Williams will choose the winning designs, which will be printed on Bionic Yarn T- shirts and sold at Woolworths.
Williams, who is a youthful 41, spent a lot of his early career somewhat in the background, producing numerous hit singles for various artists while fronting his own R&B and funkrock groups such as The Neptunes and N*E*R*D.
It wasn’t until the mid-to-late ’00s that both his producing and personal music career took off. He has won 11 Grammy awards HIT MAKER: Williams during a TV interview this week. A lucky school choir will get to perform with him and is part of several business ventures.
He is also building a $35-million (about R419.3-million) afterschool centre in his home town of Virginia Beach and his charity, From One Hand To AnOTHER, helps people between the ages of seven and 20 living in unprivileged communities in the US.
“It’s always interesting to look over your shoulders and see how things came together, because when you look over your shoulders you see, ‘Oh, that was very clear,’ but when you were in it you couldn’t see it, right?” Williams said.
“We always have a Google Maps view of hindsight but when you’re in it and the GPS is off and it sends you to the wrong place it p****s you off. But when time goes on and you look over your shoulders you realise why you went to the wrong address. So you rely on your gut. It’s not always going to be right, but in the end it is right. You live the life you’re supposed to live; if you could’ve done it any different you probably would have, but you didn’t. We’re just walking cartographers, all in the making.”
For details on the Woolworths MySchool Sing With Us and Bionic Yarn T-shirt competitions visit woolworths.co.za
We’re putting something together to show what we can do as a species We’re just walking cartographers, all in the making
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