Pharrell. He's not full of himself or rude.

In a largely handwritten lawsuit they filed themselves, brothers David and Peter Currin claim famed hip-hop singer and producer Pharrell Williams ripped them off. The suit — sprinkled with admonitions like "May GOD have mercy on your souls!" — blames Williams for taking credit for a hit song, "Just Frontin'" that mimics a song they wrote and copyrighted a decade earlier called "I'm Frontin'." "Just Frontin'" was recorded by Williams in 2003 with a guest appearance by Jay-Z. "I'm Frontin'" was written in 1993. The Currins say they sent the song to Sean Combs, a.k.a. P. Diddy (at the time) in 1995 after they heard he was looking for material for his new label, Bad Boy Records.

In 2004, Peter, who lives in Bloomfield, says he got a call from a friend stationed in the military in Texas, telling him he had heard the song on the radio and recognized it as theirs. Peter in turn called his brother David, a Hartford resident, the next time the song was broadcast.

"I was driving home from work when my brother called me and told me to turn [on] the radio," said David. "After I almost swerved and hit the railing I had to pull over for a moment. I said 'Yes, that's our song.'"

Although they never heard back from Combs, Peter Currin says it's no mystery how Williams could have gotten the song.

"Pharrell Williams had access [to the song] by way of P. Diddy because they had done business in the past," says Peter Currin. "They worked together many years prior to that song coming out."

Now the Currins want the money they believe they have coming to them — along with credit — and have sued Williams and Arista Records, owned by Sony, for $250 million.

"Why didn't Pharrell Williams countersue us for defamation?" asks Peter Currin. "Because he doesn't have anything?"

Or because Sony is defending against the lawsuit, represented by attorney Timothy Diemand of Wiggin & Dana in Hartford. Diemand, who declined to comment for this story, has moved for summary judgment in federal court to dismiss the case without a trial. New Haven attorney John Williams (no relation to Pharrell), now representing the Currins, is arguing the brothers deserve their day in court. In a memorandum, Williams writes that in addition to the "almost identical" title, Pharrell Williams' song "follows an extremely similar storyline through its lyrics to that of the [Currins'] lyrical storyline." He counters Diemand's assertion that an Internet search reveals many songs using the word "frontin'" in their titles by claiming all those songs were released after 1993, when the Currins copyrighted their song.

"Sony is trying to get the case thrown out of court, claiming we have no grounds whatsoever to bring the suit," says Williams. "They claim their song is obviously not in any way derived from ours, therefore we should not be allowed to present our case in court. We claim just the opposite."

Williams said it could be a week or a year before Judge Donna Martinez of Hartford's federal court rules on whether to allow the lawsuit to proceed.

The brothers hired Williams, a high-profile civil rights attorney, in August after going through nearly a dozen lawyers since 2007. They estimate their legal fees at about $35,000.

"Just Frontin'" was a big hit for Pharrell Williams, finishing as the 34th biggest-selling single in the United States in 2003, according to Billboard magazine. The song also did well in the United Kingdom, where it was covered by jazz pianist Jamie Cullum. Maroon 5 covered it live with Chad Hugo of the Neptunes, and Mos Def.

Hartford Advocate managing editor and music critic John Adamian reviewed both songs and found little similarity in them, either in sound or storyline. But Peter Currin insists the case for copyright infringement can be made in court.

"What they did was an adaptation and they can't do that without our permission," says Peter. "A movie might have a different ending than a book, but it's the same expression of an idea."