As the 10-year anniversary of Jay Z’s The Black Album is coming up in a few days (Nov. 14), Pharrell sits downs with Life + Times to decode his contributions to the classic album. He reminisces of “Can I Live” being one of his favorite tracks growing up and how his relationship with Hov just formed organically because they both “creatively admire the different aspects and the ways they work.”

The super producer created “Allure” for Jay Z because he wanted to hear him do something emotional for the supposed last album, similar to “Dead Presidents” from Reasonable Doubt. He decoded the thought process for the record saying, “His voice was supposed to be striking! I didn’t want to go jazzy; I wanted to go dark. “

Check out Pharrell recall his memories of working with Jay Z on his iconic work above – Shanae Hatchett