Chad Hugo

Hugo was born in the South Hampton Roads city of Portsmouth, Virginia, to Filipino parents. He grew up in Virginia Beach; his father is a retired Navy officer while his mother was a laboratory technician. Hugo met Pharrell Williams in grade school in band class, eventually linking back together at a magnet school for gifted teens. The two began working together, mixing beats and playing in various live bands.

After several years of occasional productions for artists often associated with founder Teddy Riley, such as BLACKstreet and SWV, they scored songwriting and production assignments with artists such as N.O.R.E. and Mystikal, which became hits, allowing them to produce with their own distinctive sound for megastars such as Jay-Z. Hugo signed a global music publishing deal with BMG Music Publishing.

In August 2002, The Neptunes were named Producers of the Year at both The Source Awards and the Billboard Music Awards.{{citation needed The album The Neptunes Present... Clones was then released, debuting at number one in August 2003.

Hugo has been described by The Source as the "Mr Spock" to Williams' "Captain Kirk", an analogy that does not sit well with Hugo, as he does not see himself as "stiff" like "Mr Spock". However, he does say Williams usually provides the beat (as the drummer of the duo) and most of the melodies to the Neptunes productions, whereas his role lies more in as a 'one man band' and sequencer. Despite this, he states that their roles are flexible and do interchange, and has shown his ability away from bandmate Williams, in producing Kenna's 2003 album New Sacred Cow.[2] Hugo also did the majority of the production on Make Sure They See My Face, Kenna's second album, and Kenna's 2011 EP Land 2 Air Chronicles I: Chaos and the Darkness.

In 2011, Hugo created a DJ team called "Missile Command", along with Daniel Biltmore. The duo signed a deal with Fool's Gold Records to release their music. They have released two mixtapes, 2011's "Foolcast #22", and 2013's "Why Fight the Space Age?". Hugo also created an alternative band with Paul Banks called No Planes in Space.[3] Hugo did production on Earl Sweatshirt's debut album, Doris, No Malice's debut album, Hear Ye Him, and also with Odd Future's spin off group The Internet on their second album, Feel Good.[4] Hugo and Kenna also collaborated on Kenna's EP Land 2 Air Chronicles II: Imitation Is Suicide Chapter 1, which was released on September 3, 2013.[5] Hugo and Malaysian artist Yuna also collaborated on her 2013 album, Nocturnal, for the song "Someone Who Can".[6] Under his moniker Neo-Thrift-Musica, Hugo produced "Rituals" (the third track on the Carbon Harbingers album) for the Norfolk, VA based hip-hop group Fugitive 9.[7][8]

Also in 2014, Hugo worked with K-Pop group Red Velvet for the song "Happiness", DJ Qbert for the song "Ascender (Agartha)" from Qberts' album Extraterrestria, and Kid Sister for her DUSK2DAWN: The Diary Of Jane Jupiter Mixtape for the song "Higher". Hugo also released remixes for Graph Gonzales' "Heartbreaker", St. Vincents' "Digital Witness" and Little Dragons' ″Killing Me". Hugo's DJ group MSSLCMNMD also released remixes for artists such as Graph Gonzales, Sam Smith, Denetia and Sene, Fleetwood Mac and other artists. MSSLCMNMD also produced Graph Gonzales' first single ″Heartbreaker″.[9]

More recently for 2015, Hugo reunited with his N.E.R.D. bandmates to contribute three songs to the soundtrack of The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, while also working with Iamsu! & P-Lo for the track "Can't Stop, Won't Stop"[10] from The Manny Pacquaio Movie Soundtrack, also Kevin McCalls' single "Sunflower"[11] and once again teaming up with his Neptunes partner Pharrell Williams for the Snoop Dogg album Bush.[12]

2017 saw the return of N.E.R.D, which reunited Hugo, Pharrell Williams and Shae Haley. The band released No One Ever Really Dies on December 15, 2017.

In 2018, The Neptunes worked with Justin Timberlake for the first time since Timberlake's 2002 Justified album, producing 9 tracks for his Man of the Woods album.

Hugo has three children (born in 1998, 2000, and 2014).[13][14][15]

• The Neptunes discography

• Chad Hugo on Twitter