Did Pharrell Williams borrow the idea for "Happy" from C2C?

There is a question that has been burning in my mind ever since I became aware of a team of four DJ's/Beatmaster/Performance Artists known as C2C out of France. C2C came up with their own original song titled "Happy", as original as DJ's can be of course, as they sample other peoples songs into their own. Their music video for the song features some amazing dancing, and similarly to Pharrel's release, there was even a contest to involve fans from around the world. This immediately got me wondering after I heard it and saw the video below... Did Pharrell Williams ever hear/watch this C2C version of Happy before he penned his own song titled Happy, complete with dance video and contest? C2C released their own Happy song in December 2012 and Pharrell Williams released his version of Happy in November 2013, nearly one year later than C2C.  Perhaps it does not matter, for there is nothing new under the sun.  Regardless, C2C deserves some love, for they are a very talented group of guys who know how to muster up excellent music video producers as well.

UPDATE/ANSWER TO THIS POST/QUESTION: A poster on Reddit known as GTAVSUCKS wrote that he thought Pharrell had once admitted that Ce Lo Green wrote the song for Pharrell. However, after doing some research, was led to a story about the history of the song at Contact Music that states:  

 "In an interview with Howard Stern for his US radio show, Pharrell said: ''[Cee Lo Green] wanted to do it .. and he did do it. He sounded amazing on it. He burns my version! But ... how do I say this diplomatically? The powers that be, at the time, did not see it fit for him. Some folks on his team just felt that the priority should be on [Cee Lo's] album at the time [2012's 'Cee Lo's Magic Moment'], so they elected not to do that song."

C2C - Happy

Here is one more very cool song titled Delta :)

C2C - Delta

and maybe the coolest of their songs, maybe.... (because they are all pretty grooving)

Down The Road (staring Richie Jackson)

Connect direct with C2C at c2cmusic.fr, Facebook.com/C2Cofficial, Twitter.com/C2Cdjs and Soundcloud.com/c2cdjs/tracks

Please support Music Television on these social platforms:

Facebook.Com/MusicTelevision

Twitter.Com/MusicTV_Channel

Please visit our other music video sites that include:

The Indies: TheIndies.Com
The Quiet Storm: TheQuietStorm.Com
X Music TV (for mature audiences): XMusicTV.Com
Live Music Television: LiveMusicTelevision.Com
Dancentricity: Dancentricity.Com
Classic Music Television: ClassicMusicTelevision.Com
TV Música (Latin/Spanish Music Videos): TVMusica.Com
MusicLoad: MusicLoad.Com

Ayo - I'm Gonna Dance (Music Video)

I will never forget the first time I heard Ayo and how stoked I was. I posted her song titled Life is Real on MusicLoad: http://www.musicload.com/2009/02/ayo-life-is-real.html and to this day still can't get enough of this artist.

She is from Lagos Nigeria, but has lived all over the world including Germany, France, the U.S. and other places.

Her repertoire of songs is vast with a great many of them being tear jerking ballads. She comes off as being very sensitive, usually laying her heart out on the table.

This video and song below was released in France by her label and never was promoted in the U.S. The director of the video was Pietro Di Zanno.

The song is a departure from her more sensitive ballads and songs. It's a grooving pop song that, because perhaps of the range she sings in and some of the phrasing, conjures up thoughts of early Michael Jackson when he was part of the Jackson 5.

Ayo - I'm Gonna Dance

Connect direct with Ayo at AyoMusic.com, Facebook.com/AyoMusicOfficial, Instagram.com/AyoMusic and Twitter.com/AyoMusic

This post was originally created on December 26, 2012, with subsequent edits and updates by The Indies Network at TheIndiesNetworkCom, Facebook.Com/TheIndiesNetwork and Twitter.Com/indies