Timbaland: The New Hip-Hop is Pop. Ringtone Rap is Getting Stronger
Early this summer, after listening to Timbaland’s “Shock Value” again and again, I became convinced it was one of the best albums released up to that point. Here we are messing with pre-Halloween days and it’s safe to say it’s still at the top of the Whudat Approved list. Despite the dismal sales, the album represents the new hip-hop. What’s that?
Timbaland is in the final issue of Scratch magazine and he breaks it down to the bubble.
Oh, the new hip-hop is pop: Justin, Nelly, Fergie, will.i.am. It got harder beats! Any of these pop acts that’s trying new things - that’s hip-hop. Cause that’s what hip-hop used to be - new material. I went to Harvard, took the rich kid and brought him to the hood, got him jammin’. Those are real, hard hip-hop beats.
And he’s no fan of your Crankin, Unkin, or A Bay Bayin
It’s killing me. The ringtone rap is not fading away. “A Bay Bay,” none of it’s fading away. If you ask me, it’s getting stronger… Nowadays,I think the way hip-hop is going, rappers don’t know nothing. They so simplistic, they’re like a jack-in-the-box. They just put an 808 behind it and then they got a song.
Hip-hop is terrible. If you not making terrible music, it ain’t gon’ work.
So what he does is ignore what’s considered hot and continue to experiment. Jay-Z is calling him for a song or two for American Gangster, which he’s more than happy to do, but he’s telling Jigga that he’s got to be prepared to take it to another level.
I tell Jay like I tell everybody, ‘If you’re not trying to go to planet Mars, then I can’t work with you.’ Cause Jay is too advanced for hip-hop, the way it is today. He knows that. Anything that he does has to be bigger than life. Hip-hop people might criticize him like, ‘Nah, that’s wack,’ or like, ‘He sold out, doing pop.’ But his album was (is) a big pop record. The biggest record, worldwide. That’s what we need right now.
I take that to mean Timbaland has something other than Fabolous’s summer smash “Make Me Better” in mind. Timbaland said Jay-Z made a song on the “Make Me Better” beat for the Kingdom Come album, but Jay scrapped it at the last minute and gave it to Fabolous.
As hot as that song is it isn’t what I’d consider “new hip-hop.”
What that sounds like in a Jay-Z/Timbaland context.. hopefully we’ll find out on Mars.
☼ What's Your Opinion? ☼
TIMBERLAND, HIP HOP IS HIP HOP AND NOT POP. STOP TRYING TO BLEND THE 2. I KNOW THAT THERE IS MORE MONEY IF YOU DO BLEND THE 2 BUT HIP HOP IS NOT POP. AS A MATTER OF FACT, FOR MONEY REASONS BLEND THE 2 BUT DON’T SAY THAT THEY ARE THE SAME. YOU ARE 1 OF THE HOTTEST PRODUCERS THOUGH.
You gotta follow the world play here. Hip Hop is not “Pop Music” in terms of genre definition, but it is the new “Popular” form of music. Hip Hop is Popular, hence Hip Hop is Pop. Again, not in the genre sense of the art form. I f**king concur with Timbo.
Timbaland makes original beats, no samples period.
Kanye West samples everything and samples lines.
tribe called quest is hiphop and they made their own beats, no samples needed.
mobb deep is hip hop and havoc makes a lot of their beats, no samples needed.
I think we should appreciate what timb is saying: ringtone music like ay bay bay, walk it out etc…those dudes aren’t good rappers…there albums sales are embarrassing and we wont talk about them in 6 months except when VH1 comes out with a show one hit rap wonders.
timbaland has so many hit records its disgusting..in 5 years people will be doing beats like Timb is doing now. end of story.
^i think you might be one of the stupidest people ever.
all of tribes beats use samples
havoks beats are all samples
and timbo DEF. uses samples. thats why hes been sued so many times. he doesn’t clear his samples.
Jack Flash, is right.
Timbaland may use a FEW samples but not as nearly as much as most producers. He’s pretty close to being 100% Original.
Timerland What a homer. All that junk he’s talking about ain’t hip hop!, it’s Hip Pop, and Hip Pop is a mockery of the real shit! Hip Pop is made strictly for the females and anybody under the age of 21.
bubble-gum pop rappers suck, ringtone rappers suck,it all sucks! Timberlands a sof lil sucka, pickin up where diddy left off the pursuit to dilute and water down an urban art form just so they can get rich off of corney punch-lines sayin bling this, booty that and saying nothing from the soul!
Timbaland has sampled stuff, even pillaging people who made chiptunes for Commodore 64s recently. There was a huge legal debate about it along time ago. You’d have to be deaf to believe he didnt sample it.
But at the same time, I praise Tribe for creative sampling of records. I have the Blue Note Dropping Science collection, and just about every song feature was sampled by tribe and a few other people.
take away the sampling, you take away the hip hop. but if all your doing is just taking the 16 bar main riffs and not cutting, chopping, mixing it with other samples, you might be a hack.
In a way copyright laws did do hiphop some good, you have to be creative with your sampling now.