Pharrell Williams wants his music to make people happy.
The Neptunes beatmaker has carved out a career producing dance tracks for Justin Timberlake, Gwen Stefani, Britney Spears and Robin Thicke, to name a few.
He recently added movie composer to his resume.
Pharrell worked on the soundtrack to animated comedy Despicable Me 2 with Heitor Pereira.
Together the pair wrote Happy, Just a Cloud Away and Scream, performed by Cee Lo Green.
The experience helped him to realise his aspirations of uplifting listeners with colourful music and providing an escape from the less beautiful things in life.
"People have become so desensitized to all the tragedies and travesties, that as a species, we needed to go to a lighter place," he told Collider.
The hitmaker credits his "super-genius" colleagues with helping to bring his movie tracks to life.
What's most important to him is making music unlike anything that's been heard before.
"If someone asks me what inspires me, I always say, 'That which is missing,' because I don't want to copy everything that's already happening," he explained.
"I feel like when you copy, you blend in, and when you blend in, you get lost. When I make music, I try to make something that is super colorful and something you've never heard before, so when you hear the whole album, it's a good feeling. Musically that's what I aspire to do whenever I'm making an album."