Pharrell Williams is currently gearing up to perform at this Sunday's Oscar Awards ceremony, but before doing so, the 40-year-old ageless mega-producer sat down with GQ Magazine to talk about his successful career, and how having money, cars and women got to his head. Which explains his sultry hit track, "Hypnotize."

The "Happy" singer also discussed his second solo album G I R L and creating the same genres of music to be Jay Z and P. Diddy. Check out the highlights from the interview below:

On wanting to be like Jay Z and P. Diddy:

“At that time, I was just bragging. I really wanted to be like Jay and Puff. Those are their paths. Now I got my own path. But I didn’t know what my path was then. I knew that I was meant to do something different. I knew that I needed to inject purpose in my music.”

On his first album, In My Mind:

“I wrote those songs out of ego. Talking about the money I was making and the by-products of living that lifestyle. What was good about that? What’d you get out of it? There was no purpose. I was so under the wrong impression at that time.”

He added:

“The money was too loud. The success was too much. The girls were too beautiful. The jewelry was too shiny. The cars were too fast. The houses were too big. It’s like not knowing how to swim and being thrown in the ocean for the first time. Everything is just too crazy. You’re like, flailing and kicking and whatever, and you know what happens, don’t you? You sink. My spirit sank. I just felt like, ‘F--k, what am I doing?’”

Also,
[Pharrell] also responded to the latest controversies surrounding his "G I R L" album cover, after Ebony Magazine’s editor Jamilah Lemieux wrote an article this week on her dismay that he chose “three extremely pale women” to be featured on his album cover.

While speaking to TheYBF, Pharrell dropped the bomb that there IS actually a black girl on the cover and she just so happens to be a woman he used to date! The girl in the middle.

The Oscar Nominee told the site:

Well, they’re ill informed. The woman I’m standing closest to, she is black and she’s been a friend of mine for a long time. You know, I’m confused by it.

Then they’re going to ask me do I not have an Indian woman on there or a Pakistani woman on there? But meanwhile, I do. She is African American and I feel sorry for her that people will look her dead in her face like she ain’t black but she is black. It’s a girl I use to date years ago.

It’s just unfortunate because it’s 2014 and we have a President [who’s black]. Is this what it is? Is it because she’s not brown? I don’t feel funny about our President because he is what he is. Meanwhile, has anybody forgotten that I’m black myself? I wake up everyday and I wave the black flag. Everything that I’m doing. You know, this “Happy” song going #1. What is the guy that’s singing the song? What do you mean?

Be sure to read the full interview HERE