As The Neptunes production team, Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo were among the most reliable hit-makers of the last decade, racking up hits for rappers, R&B singers and pop stars alike. They were never able to duplicate that same chart...

Prophetic didn't actually expect to hear back from Pharrell Williams after he ran into him at a N.E.R.D. concert last fall and attempted to pass on his new CD, but against the odds a month later Prophetic received a call from Pharrell's people and, soon after, Pharrell himself.

   Our conversation is painful, marked by enough long pauses to fill an entire season of "The Office." Pharrell Williams, the singer and public face of N.E.R.D., is normally the chatty one, but right now he's so disinterested in my questions that he's making his less talkative bandmate Shay answer them from a third phone line. Though he struggles to be polite, Shay prefaces many of his short answers with a barely disguised sigh.  "Hey, P, you still there?"

Kanye West cemented his star-making reputation when he produced Common’s 2005 hit Be, a soulful, down-to-Earth album that resuscitated Common’s career after 2002’s ambitious but muddled Electric Circus. Common teamed up with West again for much of 2007’s Finding Forever, a respectable sequel that never fully captured the simple charm of Be, but for Common’s upcoming album, Universal Mind Control, the conscious...

Thursday, Sept. 25, Common w/ N.E.R.D. @ The Rave, 8 p.m. Kanye West cemented his star-making reputation when he produced Common’s 2005 hit Be, a soulful, down-to-Earth album that resuscitated Common’s career after 2002’s ambitious but muddled Electric Circus. Since then, life has been good...

Although their days of being guaranteed hitmakers may be behind them, the Neptunes production team has had a surprisingly long run. A decade after their beats cracked the charts, they continue to work with just about every big-name rapper and pop star in the industry. By comparison, N.E.R.D., the funk-rock band spearheaded by the Neptunes, was a flash in the pan. The group cut one o...