Complex has released The Best Hip-Hop Producer Alive, Every Year Since 1979, naming Pharrell as Producer of the Year for 2025. The list focuses on yearly dominance rather than all-time rankings, highlighting producers who combined quality, momentum, and cultural impact in a specific moment.
Just as lyrics live in our heads, it’s the production that makes them timeless, shaping eras and defining sounds. Being named Producer Alive of the Year doesn’t mean being the greatest ever. Many GOAT-level producers never take a single year simply because someone else had the bigger run or influence in that window. In 2025, that run belongs to Pharrell.
“CREDENTIALS: Clipse’s Let God Sort Em Out
At the end of his verse on Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” Pharrell issues a warning: “Matter-fact, you should take four, B/And think before you fuck with-a lil’ Skateboard P.” In that context, it’s a threat—but “fucking” with the Virginia Beach legend usually turns out good for your career. Since emerging roughly 35 years ago, P has enjoyed a near-ceaseless run of Hot 100 tracks—a streak he extended into 2025, a year that saw him claim the status of the best producer alive. His case rests as much on versatility as it does on perfection.
For Don Toliver, Speedy, and j-hope, P crafted “LV Bag,” a constellation of spacey synths and timpani hits that feels like a celestial shopping spree. When he linked with The Weeknd and Playboi Carti, he delivered a heroic synth-pop beat on “Timeless.” Teaming up with Seventeen, P served up a sleek strain of glitchy, future-gloss pop. Then there’s Karol G’s “Ivory Bonita,” an exercise in atmospheric bachata. It’s a test of range, imagination, and precision.
The tracks are about as similar as the regions they represent—which is to say, not very similar at all. Still, Pharrell makes the sounds unmistakably his own, imbuing each with the subtle bounce he and Chad Hugo—who recently filed a lawsuit against P over financial impropriety—helped define in the late ’90s and 2000s. So it’s only right that he reached this moment as the best producer alive linking with the rappers he started with.
Released in 2025, Clipse’s Let God Sort Em Out doubles as an exhibition for Pharrell’s dexterity. For this one, Clipse’s first LP in 16 years, he oscillates between blunt force and soundscapes fit for drug lords in a fantastical land. With a bassline designed for a dystopian western, “Chains & Whips” feels like “No Church in the Wild’s” more ominous cousin. With gleaming, sinister synths and pummeling 808s, the title track is supervillain Wraith music. “Birds Don’t Sing” gallops like a horse, “So Be It” seduces like a deadly temptress. The snares on “M.T.B.T.T.F.” hit like a… a blow to the face. It all hits the way it should. And it’s largely because of Pharrell.
Curated, conceived, and executed by Skateboard P himself, Let God Sort Em Out is the best combination of style and substance, a mix that’s led Clipse to some of the highest commercial heights of their career. The LP wound up selling 118,000 equivalent album units in its first week after hitting No. 4 on the Billboard 200 chart. For their career, Clipse has 11 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Six of them come from Let God Sort Em Out. Before this year they hadn’t been nominated for a Grammy—ever. Let God Sort Em Out has earned four nods on its own, including a nomination for Best Rap Album. Credit to Clipse for their songwriting skills. But also kudos to the King Push and Malice for choosing the right coach for their championship aspirations. When you’re trying to write the best lyrics for the best rap album, it helps to have the best producer.—Peter A. Berry”
