Timbaland

Timothy Z. Mosley (born March 10, 1971) better known by his stage name Timbaland, is an American musical composer, record producer, singer and rapper. With partner Magoo, he is a member of hip-hop duo Timbaland & Magoo. Timbaland was also friends with Pharrell Williams, and had dabbled in projects with him as S.B.I., or Surrounded By Idiots. Williams recalls in an interview: "In seventh grade I met Chad . That’s twenty years ago by now. Like I said earlier, we started producing beats together. But then again, I also played with this famous group which consisted of Timbaland, Magoo, myself and some other guy. Chad wasn’t a part of the group, so I was in "The Neptunes" and "Surrounded By Idiots" at the same time." Also in 1996, Ginuwine released his debut album, Ginuwine...the Bachelor, which was produced entirely by Timbaland. The album was both a commercial and critical success, and its first single, "Pony", was the first example of what would later become the signature Timbaland sound.

Timbaland & Magoo’s second album together, Indecent Proposal, had been scheduled for release in November 2000, and was to feature appearances by Beck, Aaliyah, and new Timbaland protégés -- some of whom were signed to his new Beat Club Records imprint--Ms. Jade, Kiley Dean, Sebastian, Petey Pablo, and Tweet (who was a member of Sugah during the Swing Mob days). The album was delayed for an entire year, finally being released the following November. It was a commercial disappointment. Beck’s vocals for the track "I Am Music" were not included on the final released version, which instead featured Timbaland singing alongside Static (Steven Garrett) of Playa and Aaliyah, who had been killed in a plane crash three months before the release of the album. The loss of Aaliyah deeply affected Timbaland, whose work was less omnipresent after 2001.

In 2005, Timbaland produced a song on Tweet and The Game’s albums ("Steer" and "Put You on the Game" respectively). He also produced two songs on Missy Elliott’s sixth album, The Cookbook: "Joy (feat. Mike Jones)" & "Partytime", as well as "He'll Be Back" on Jennifer Lopez’s fifth studio album, Rebirth.

In an interview published in August, he declared that he had worked on seven songs for Björk’s new album (three of which, "Earth Intruders", "Hope" and "Innocence" will appear on the album), and in another he was later reportedly working on tracks for the next Duran Duran album, due in 2007, including one song featuring Justin Timberlake. Also in 2007, Timbaland will be producing songs for Bone Thugs upcoming new LP, Strength & Loyalty and 50 Cent’s new album and Curtis. Surprisingly, Timbaland has invited help from outside of the US industry and called upon Quang Chou from the label chou*star to co-produce many tracks and work along side him. chou*star is a label currently based in the UK soon to venture with Timbaland.

He has produced more than six tracks for Ashlee Simpson's third album which will be released in December 2007. He has also worked on Mary J. Blige's upcoming album titled Growing Pains, as well as Missy Elliott (new album due spring 2008), and Jennifer Hudson. According to an interview with Scratch magazine in the Nov/Dec issue, Timbaland has been signed to produce the majority of Beyonce's new album and also work with Usher and Stevie Wonder. Timbaland also has interest in working on former Destiny's Child member Letoya Luckett's second album.

In early 2007, there was controversy surrounding Timbaland because of allegations of plagiarism that surfaced concerning his work on the Nelly Furtado track "Do It". He is alleged to have plagiarized several elements (both motifs and samples) in the song without giving credit or compensation. The claimed original track, entitled "Acidjazzed Evening", is a chiptune-style 4-channel Amiga module composed by Finnish demoscener Janne Suni (a.k.a. Tempest). The song won first place in the Oldskool Music competition at Assembly 2000, a demoparty held in Helsinki, Finland in the year 2000. According to Scene.org, the song was uploaded to their servers the same year, long before the release of the song by Furtado. The song was later remixed (with Suni’s permission) by Norwegian Glenn Rune Gallefoss (a.k.a. GRG) for the Commodore 64 in SID format - this is the version which was later allegedly sampled for "Do It". It was added to the High Voltage SID Collection on December 21, 2002.

On April 1, the track for "Do It" (without vocals) was used as theme music for the 2007 Juno Awards broadcast, which Furtado hosted. The track was played during the show’s opening and before commercial breaks. The controversial samples could be clearly heard throughout.

In 2007 a rivalry flared up between Timbaland and record producer Scott Storch. The tension initially started on the single "Give It to Me", when Timbaland anonymously called out Storch, rapping, "I'm a real producer and you just the piano man". He went on to rap that "I get a half a mill fo' my beats, you get a couple grand". Timbaland confirmed that he was talking about Storch in an interview with MTV personality Sway Calloway. He said that he would go after the trash talkers on his new album Timbaland Presents Shock Value.