Rapper/producer Pharrell Williams will join upstart network Karmaloop TV as the youth-culture targeted service's creative director for new programming.
Williams, who has worked with and produced hits for such artists as Gwen Stefani, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears, will also take a "significant" equity position in the network, headed up by former AMC and Lionsgate programming executive Katie McEnroe. The network, which will target multicultural, 18-to-34-year-old "verge culture" viewers interested in underground and trendsetting fashion, music, film, art, dance, lifestyle and entertainment, is expected to launch later this year.
"Pharrell is, without a doubt, one of the most influential cultural creatives and business minds in America today," states Greg Selkoe, CEO of Karmaloop TV in a statement. "We're delighted and honored that he has joined our effort to create a multi-platform brand that will once again excite cutting edge youth culture about TV, just as MTV did in the 1980s."
Williams, who is also the lead singer for rap/rock group N.E.R.D, added in a statement that that Karmaloop TV "will once again give intelligent and creative youth culture a voice and a TV entertainment brand they can call their own, something that has been missing for a long time now. Progressive youth culture is hungry for different content than what is out there now - they are currently massively underserved."
