When you’re as obsessive as Pharrell Williams about crafting melodies and spaced-out hip-hop club beats, you don’t even have to think about making a solo album. It just happens. Williams, one-half of the Neptunes hitmaking team — and the best-dressed man in the world, according to Esquire magazine — was fiddling around in the lab between recording sessions with artists like Mariah Carey, Omarion and Slim Thug, when out popped his new CD “In My Mind.”

“When I’m working on certain acts — in between sessions, before the session, after the session, or like while they’re at lunch — I stay working, and I make beats,” Williams told asap last week while preparing for a Vibe Awards rehearsal. Due out Dec. 12 and featuring seven hip-hop and seven R&B tracks, it’s not as likely to startle the pop world as fellow producer-rapper Kanye West’s solo debut did in early 2004. West had hardly rapped on any hit songs before that CD. Williams, 32, has been out from behind the boards, sharing the spotlight as a singer and rapper, for years. Now Williams is calling back a few friends for his solo effort, which features Beyonce Knowles, Slim Thug, Daddy Yankee and Jay-Z. Click Here for the full story.