UMW James Farmer Multicultural Center Assistant Director Chris Williams
James Farmer Multicultural Center Assistant Director Chris Williams was interviewed in The Free Lance-Star about his contributions to Netflix’s Emmy Award-winning documentary series, Hip-Hop Evolution. Williams, who has worked as a freelance music journalist for the last decade, appeared in the third episode of Season 4, entitled “Super Producers.” Williams’ articles and interviews with classic soul and R&B artists have been published or cited in Ebony, The Atlantic, Huff Post, AOL Music, The New York Times, Pitchfork, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Slate, Vice and others.
According to The Free Lance-Star:
In 2015, Williams pitched a series of “origin stories” about the key players in the mid-1990s Virginia hip-hop scene—Teddy Riley, Missy Elliott and Timbaland, The Neptunes (the producing duo Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams) and D’Angelo—to Red Bull Music Academy, which publishes an online magazine and hosts music workshops and festivals around the world.
For his series, he interviewed the artists’ friends, relatives and collaborators, as well as agents and music executives who worked with them.
He interviewed Riley himself for a story on how the Harlem-raised producer, who’d worked with the Jacksons and Bobby Brown, among others, moved to Virginia Beach in 1990 to establish a studio. The story chronicled how Riley influenced the music scene, discovering and mentoring The Neptunes.
Those stories pointed the “Hip-Hop Evolution” team toward Williams.
“They told me, ‘Chris, your name just kept popping up everywhere,’ ” he said.
Williams was able to put the team in contact with Riley and helped them shape the episode to include him. Read more.