Mid-day on Tuesday, Pharrell Williams and Beats 1 host Zane Lowe let the world know that something big was coming in just about 24 hours.
Speculation ran rampant. Was there a new solo album on the way? Were the Neptunes re-teaming with one of their star collaborators like Justin Timberlake? Was Pharrell's critically-beloved group N*E*R*D reuniting after a seven-year hiatus?
As it turns out, it was the last of these. Skateboard P opened Zane Lowe's Beats 1 Radio show to say that the band was getting back together. He, production partner Chad Hugo, and Shay Haley are putting out new music for the first time since 2010's Nothing.
And as if that wasn't enough good news, Pharrell premiered a new song from the project. The track is titled "Lemon," and features none other than Rihanna. The group also released a video for the tune, which you can see above.
Williams, Hugo, and Haley have known each other since childhood, but began releasing music under the name N*E*R*D (to which they later attached the backronym "Noone Ever Really Dies") with In Search of... in 2001. Since Nothing, the group's output has consisted of three songs for a SpongeBob movie soundtrack.
