"What is a N.E.R.D? N.E.R.D stands for No One Ever Really Dies. The Neptunes are who we are and N.E.R.D is what we do. It's our life. N.E.R.D is just a basic belief, man. People's energies are made of their souls. When you die, that energy may disperse but it isn't destroyed. Energy cannot be destroyed. It can manifest in a different way but even then it's like their souls are going somewhere. If it's going to heaven or hell or even if it's going into a fog or somewhere in the atmosphere to lurk unbeknownst to itself, it's going somewhere." - Pharrell Williams

Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo of The Neptunes are the most revolutionary production tandem in modern music since Quincy Jones and Rod Tempterton put down shuffle-beats and doo-wops behind a young singer named Michael Jackson. With their digital musical palette and vivid imaginations, they've taken their hip-hop foundation and un-tethered the bounds of pop, bestowing unsuspecting hit records in almost machine-gun-like succession -- whether in rap (Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes, et al), R&B (Usher, Babyface), pop (Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake) or rock (No Doubt).

But N.E.R.D is not the Neptunes. N.E.R.D is the offspring of the Neptunes id, a fly-or-die, thrash-around, do-as-you-will, set-your-soul-on-fire alter-ego that subscribes to no rules, adheres to no agenda. It is Pharrell, Chad and Shay - a trio whose chemistry allows the uninhibited exploration of the sounds, emotions and impulses of self and society, of identity and belonging. Of life.

FLY OR DIE is the second album from N.E.R.D, picking up where the groups debut, IN SEARCH OF?, left off. "It's evolution, for real," says Shay. "There's an entire dimension to music and life that we touched on with IN SEARCH OF?, but that was only the beginning. Those were only doors to this other dimension and with this album we are there."

"I think we learned a lot from the first album and we've opened up more here," explains Chad. "I think we're going places we haven't gone before. We've always played our own instruments in everything we do, but we convert them into programming for the final tracks," says Chad. "For FLY OR DIE, we decided to pick up the instruments and play ourselves and leave it like that. It's more honest and people don't know this side to us yet."

Lyrically, too, the group broke new perspectives. Pharrell goes deeper into exploring the side of his personality that most people don't get to see. "He's more quirky in real life than he is in videos and other people's songs," says Chad. Adds Shay, "He's a little more eccentric in his personality and in N.E.R.D he can pull that off."

If many of the songs tap into the anxieties, awkwardness and aspirations of adolescence, it's no coincidence. "We didn't write these songs like that because we're obsessed with high school," says Chad. "But there are real memories from that time that shaped our lives and it just comes out naturally." Says Shay more succinctly, "I think those were some of the best years of our life, truth be told."

Which is where N.E.R.D lies - in the time-warp, where boundaries and borders and linearity succumb to the openness of truth. Because in life, there are two paths to choose from but only one direction to go in - and you can either FLY OR DIE.