Timbaland Musical Mastermind on creating legendary beats with Jay Z, Missy Elliott, Justin Timberlake, Aaliyah, battling addiction, rebuilding, describes the crash and burn from top, what saved him, learning to adapt and the future of Versuz's

"You need to see what you are made of. I think everyone needs to go to the top and take a dip.... Falling down really determines your true success. How do you get back up?" Timbaland You know how it goes Pivot Family- 'It’s been a long time, we shouldn’t have left you, without a dope beat to step to'.... Well we have that beat, as we welcome entertainment icon, Timbaland to The Pivot as he delivers a masterclass in music, resilience, and reinvention. The Grammy-winning producer sits down with Ryan, Fred and Channing to talk about his legendary career, the price of success, overcoming addiction, and the future of the industry. Raised in Virginia, Timbaland didn’t come from a major music city, but that only made him hungrier. He breaks down how growing up with limited resources forced him to use anything available to him to create a sound that had never been heard before. As a teenager, he was shot in the neck, leaving him temporarily paralyzed on one side, but it didn't slow up his creative drive, it only sharpened his focus, clearing the way for one of the most distinct musical paths. Ryan recounts how Timbaland, a musical mastermind, was a soundtrack to life growing up and is behind some of the most memorable hits of our times. With over 18-GRAMMY nominations, 4 GRAMMY wins and 200+ ASCAP Music awards, he shares with the guys how he understands his contributions to the music world and is grateful for working with some of the most successful and legendary artists who always brought out the best in him. From Jay-Z’s effortless flow to Missy Elliott’s visionary and creativity, Timbaland shares what makes "the Greats" different. He breaks down how he and Missy discovered Aaliyah’s “Try Again” beat, the chemistry behind Justin Timberlake’s biggest hits, the songs he wished he released differently, his in-studio process with Jay Z and why some artists just have an energy that can’t be duplicated. Timbaland opens up on his dark times, discussing the moment success became too much and admits that at his peak, he let his ego overpower his talent, which allowed addiction to give him a false sense of power. He recalls out-of-body experiences that made him confront how far he had fallen, the loss of reality and how ultimately, it was deep self-reflection, faith and his wife’s voice that brought him back. Despite decades of prominence and success, Timbaland isn’t stuck in the past. He’s studying the next wave of producers, embracing change, and keeping his sound ahead of the curve. He talks about the impact of Versuz's platform that he co-created with Swizz Beatz, how new artists are still trying to replicate his blueprint, and how the secret to true success isn’t about longevity, it’s about knowing how to adapt and elevate. This conversation takes us on a journey through music but also sheds light on lessons of falling, rebuilding, and coming back stronger than ever. As in music and in life, Timbaland’s story is proof that the real beat never stops, sometimes, you just have to find the rhythm again. Don't forget to like and follow us on your audio platform of choice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Before this,

• 0:05Speaker 00

  there's this.

• 0:08Speaker 00

  As you celebrate the game, take a deeper look at its roots. The people growing the grass, paving the lots, welding the goalposts, inspecting every football. The hard-working people that make every Sunday possible. Carhartt is proud to outfit the crews behind the game. Visit carhartt.com/jointhetrades to learn more.

• 0:30Channing Crowder?

  Bro, you safe. You safe. They ain't let nobody get to your house, man.

• 0:35Speaker 02

  For real?

• 0:35Channing Crowder?

  Man, I've been in the neighborhood 30 minutes riding around. I told the dude in the truck, I was like, "Where's Timbaland live?" He said, "I don't know." I said, "You know where Timbaland lives." They was not gonna give me the address. They was not gonna send me this way.

• 0:49Ryan Clark?

  Because you should've said, "Where's Mr. Mosley?"

• 0:51Speaker 02

  I don't know what...

• 0:52Channing Crowder?

  Bruh, you safe.

• 0:55Channing Crowder?

  You are safe. I've been here 30 minutes.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  I was like, "Quietness."

• 0:58Channing Crowder?

  They'd have been in the lot, my ass up by now. Big black dude riding around in the suburb.

• 1:02Fred Taylor?

  Well, Plex probably would differ. He said he was coming out of, what is it, Land Haven Mall? In the late 90s. And it was an 850i or something that looked like a spaceship. And they didn't have a clue what it was.

• 1:13Speaker 02

  Oh, that's back in the day.

• 1:15Fred Taylor?

  He said it was back in the day. He said, "But it inspired him to go get it." He said he wanted me to remind you of that.

• 1:22Speaker 02

  I think we should've kept those cars. I think an 850, the value of that car went up. I believe. They don't make them anymore.

• 1:27Fred Taylor?

  Right, correct, yeah.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  And there was another one I had, a Porsche Carrera. The Carrera, the one that's like $2 million, $4 million now.

• 1:35Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  And it was very rare. I had that. And I was like, "Man, I don't want this car." Because it's stick sheer. It was hard. It was... This is a lot. But it was great. But it was just a lot to drive.

• 1:46Channing Crowder?

  The voice you hear and the face you see is Grammy Award-winning producer, Timbaland. Thank you so much, man, for sitting with us.

• 1:52Speaker 02

  Thank y'all for having me.

• 1:53Channing Crowder?

  Man, we fired up. Shoot, I was hyped. We saw on the text. I was like, "Shit, I'm hyped."

• 1:57Speaker 02

  I love trying to... I love supporting everything that, you know, I've been watching y'all for a minute. So I'm like, "Hey, it'd be an honor for me to be on the show."

• 2:06Channing Crowder?

  Honor is all hours.

• 2:07Speaker 02

  Because I see how y'all just have mixed it up. At first, I was like, "I don't... This is sports." So I was like, "I don't know how..." But now I see like, the momentum, how y'all talk about life and how life goes on. So it's like, okay, it's bigger than just... Sports, it's about life. Man, appreciate you, brother.

• 2:41Ryan Clark?

  Thank you so much. Shannon Crowder, Fred Taylor, Ryan Clark, Pivot fam. Thank you for pivoting with us. You know, I was telling you earlier, like you were like the soundtrack to my young life. You know what I mean? Let me do it all kind of ways. Like if I had a little chick coming over, I had something for her at the club. We was going to the club, we had something for them. We've had a lot of Virginia-based, whether it's athletes, entertainers on this show, and all of y'all have so much love for where you came from. And it's such a wealth of talent. How did growing up there shape you and sort of shape the sound that we all got from you once you became Timbaland?

• 3:20Speaker 02

  You know, it's funny, now that I think about it, and I've been doing a lot of, you know, other talking shows and people ask me like, "What was it like coming out of Virginia?" I think isolation. It allowed you to dream big. And when I look back at it, I think if you had everything at your fingertips, the hunger might wouldn't have been there. But not having nothing, and we was always chasing DC and New York, not knowing it was six hours away because we were kids, it just seemed so far and so far-fetched to get to and to get recognized. It made us work harder, you know what I'm saying? So not having much, making what we had be the best.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  It allowed us to create something that never was created before. And sometimes I think coming from small towns allow, you see a lot of great people come from small towns because I feel like we don't have much. I know we got the ghetto, but being a small town and in the ghetto is like, where are you pulling from? You know, it's like... You dream big and hope big and have faith and just keep pushing.

• 4:27Ryan Clark?

  It's Virginia Beach. That's totally different than Virginia.

• 4:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:32Ryan Clark?

  It is very different.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  Very different, but just the whole state of Virginia is still like.

• 4:38Channing Crowder?

  Bruh got shot at the Red Lobster back in the cooking in the back. Yeah, I ain't known the people shooting at Red Lobster.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Well, it's not that you were shooting, it's just a matter of just like kids are having a job and this was the weirdest thing. People used to plan for fights. In our day, like, I see the football game. I'm like, this whole week, y'all prep for a fight like it's a real fight night, so these guys.

• 5:03Ryan Clark?

  Promoting it.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, I'm like, but you could afford Monday.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  Why you wait till Friday? And then they walk past each other, I'm like, yo, we was really doing like real like boxing commentating like without a promoter. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm like, well, I should have been a promoter or something like, cause like, they would all get together and go meet behind the bleachers like, oh, there go so and so, there go so and so. Oh, it's about to be on. So the whole crowd will go behind the bleachers and they'll be like, what's up, what's up? I'm like, all this led to the game. Hey, you got all your good clothes too? I was like.

• 5:40Ryan Clark?

  Your bojangles.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the Red Lobster case was one of those moments. He said, wait till I see your boy at the game. Wait till I see your boy. I got something for him. I was like, what you gonna do with man? Put that. And he put it back in his book bag as he's putting it back in his book bag. Pow.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  Hit me. I was like, ah.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  And you know, when you get shot, it's like a and your ears ring, you know. Luckily, I didn't drop, but I walked out. But I was like, yo, I can't feel my arm. Then I thought my arm was on the ground. Cause it was dead, so I'm swinging it. My arm was swinging with me. I'm like, where my arm at? Where my arm at? Where my arm at? I'm swinging around, my arm was swinging. And the supervisor's like, it's right here, it's right here. I said, no, it ain't. I can't feel it. And he pulled it out, I was like, yo. It's like, it felt like me shaking your hand. It is like this part of my body was dead. That's crazy. So it's like I experienced death on the half side of my body. And so it was paralyzed. And I was like, oh, I can't die 17. Oh, I can't.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  And he said, what happened? What happened? I don't see nothing. He said, he looking around, they looking at me, and he looked at me, he said, and I said, what, what, what, what? He said, calm down, calm down, calm down. I said, aw, man, I got shot, man.

• 7:02Speaker 02

  Then when that bullet started to burn, that was a feeling that I don't wish on nobody, boy, that, because you can't, you don't have no water to put it out. You just gotta take the burning till you get that morphine that they had, you know what I'm saying, that the hospital had. But the burning sensation lasts for a minute, and then I was like, you know, I didn't know, I was just in shock, but, you know, God had me the whole time.

• 7:24Channing Crowder?

  You still cool, that was your homeboy, that, that hit you?

• 7:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, he ain't, he ain't mean to do it.

• 7:28Channing Crowder?

  But you still cool with him? Yeah, I love, I love RC and Fred, that nigga shoot me, it's curtains, bro, we ain't be cool no more.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Man, Ron ain't mean to shoot you, he had a gun, Ron, that's Ron's stupidness. He should have kept, he was a revolver, that, you know what I'm saying? That was, they, back then, it's like, we didn't know, like, to be careful.

• 7:44Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  And the funniest thing, that same incident happened again with somebody, and it didn't make it, because somebody had a gun in the backseat about to go, and he was caught. He, something hit the bump, pooh, pooh, hit the guy in the head.

• 7:55Channing Crowder?

  No, man.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I remember that one too, yeah.

• 7:59Channing Crowder?

  Did you get the bullet all the way?

• 8:00Speaker 02

  No, I still, I can't get an MRI, which, they told me I had to go do some, like, medical work. I can't because the bullet's still in me, under my arm.

• 8:06Channing Crowder?

  Really?

• 8:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. Then they say if it, they don't want to do it, if it move. And one time I was about to get it, I forgot, and he said, have you had any metal? And I was just sitting there, yeah, no, no, no, you're not listening to him. He said, okay, we got scared, you know, I said, hold on, hold on, I do got metal in me. I said, hold on, I got a, I got a bullet. Oh, and you didn't say nothing? And I'm like, oh, okay, so I had to remember that.

• 8:26Channing Crowder?

  Tim, how do you, how do you forget you got a bullet in you, though?

• 8:28Speaker 02

  Just sitting in the hospital, thinking about what else could be wrong at that moment. When you go to the doctors, you don't be thinking like,

• 8:33Channing Crowder?

  Right.

• 8:34Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying, you kind of, just kind of drift off, and you just be in your own thoughts. One of the moments where I had drifted off, and it wasn't like, he, he, it wasn't that the MRI was gonna start, he was writing it on the charts. So, he was writing on the charts, I was like, oh, we can't do an MRI because of my bullet. But if I didn't, you know, I kind of slipped my mind, because I was just thinking my mind, we just got lost.

• 8:55Fred Taylor?

  God did that for a reason, obviously. Your music is amazing, man, and it touches everybody across, across the entire planet. What was young Tim like, like, before the music?

• 9:05Speaker 02

  A guy that was just trying to really, like,

• 9:10Speaker 02

  Fit in because I wasn't a sports person. I wasn't like a school person. I was just always a sound person. Every, I thought I was like a weird person, but was always cool with the drug dealers. And it's cool with the nerds. So I was like a hybrid. But I just really just embraced music. And music allowed me to fit in because I was a great DJ. So music allowed me to fit in with the sports people. And just regular like popular people. Because I was a popular guy with my music made me cool. You know what I'm saying? But if I didn't have music, I don't know if I probably been, I probably been just the guy hanging with the people

• 9:52Speaker 02

  that go to, you know, Silicon Valley or something like that. But just did music, you know what I'm saying? But I was just a guy that was always just into my own world of music and creating, just love to create. And then when my parents didn't have money to buy me stuff, I always found ways to make it happen. Just like what little keyboards, plugging this, being a scientist, making it rewiring it, making it do this, making it do that. Because I just couldn't, I was a big dreamer. Music was just a part of me. Like I couldn't learn in school. It was just like, reading was like very hard because I was dyslexic and I couldn't like words. Looking at, I've always called myself like Percy Jackson. When he sees something, it looks weird on the board, but then he can see it and it flips. And it's like, that's how letters to me.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  So people ask me, they said, do you read? Like I said, no, I like to get read too. You know what I'm saying? Because words to me don't stick. You know what I'm saying? So when teach, go to school to read, I'm like, I don't understand, like say it again. Say it to me because if you say it, I can comprehend it better. But on black and white used to look like, it's like, look weird. So I always thought like, You know, you back then, you just kept your insecurities to yourself. You know what I'm saying? It's you don't really, even then when you're half of your adult, you know, you don't really, you just kind of keep it to yourself, stay cool. It's only really like now that people kind of expresses. Right. You know, your insecurities and what you had problems with. But that's what I was like.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Little Tim was a guy who music just got me into a lot of places because I did a lot of house parties.

• 11:27Channing Crowder?

  Bruh, the DJing thing, like that's what started it. And we know your story, you know what I'm saying? With DJing then, turning producer and turning into worldwide superstar and all that stuff. How early was the DJing? Because what you just said, like as you speak through that, I'm listening like it couldn't be at eight. Ain't nobody letting nobody DJ at eight. Like when it almost DJing started your identity?

• 11:51Speaker 02

  I see.

• 11:51Channing Crowder?

  And the young kids that live, you know what I'm saying? That feel the same thing you feel, when did you know that you could be what you are?

• 11:57Speaker 02

  Probably like in high school, 15, 15. And then when I got shot at 17, my arm was paralyzed. I was like, oh, the first thing I said, I can't DJ no more. But I found, when my arm was in a sling, I always found a way like to scratch with my elbow and do stuff to, I just had to. Something like, you know, do something like, uh, or just play and, you know. But like at 15, like a house party, kids, parents used to go out of town. We throw a house party. I had to bring them speakers from all the way upstairs from my mama's house. Carry all that stuff, put it in the car, in the hoopde and go down the street to a house party. That was, that was the thing. At 15, always 16 to 17, that's when it kind of like got transitioned me because I had to.

• 12:43Ryan Clark?

  You know, listening to that, it's, your story is a lot like ours though, in the sense that you found something you love and you poured yourself into it. You know, like I'm from the Inno, like he from Florida, he's from Atlanta. We were all in places where you were trying to find a way out. You were trying to find a way to pull your people up. When you do get to, get to that platform and you are around the Leas and the Genuines and the Missies and... You are also a star. That was the days where the producers were stars, too.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  They were.

• 13:15Ryan Clark?

  Right? When you went and got an album, you looked at it. You wanted to know who was on there. And eventually, we knew if we saw those artists or heard those artists, we heard you, too. What was it like acclimating to that stardom? When you come from a kid who was around the cool kids because of your talent, now your talent made you one of the cool kids?

• 13:35Speaker 02

  Every story like that is like you love it, right? It's, but then there's a crash and burn, too. You know what I'm saying? Being like, sometimes you can be too cool for school. You know what I'm saying? Meaning like, that time of the world where you needed certain things. You needed three elements. Now, there's so many elements you need. But back then, it's those, you needed a producer. Artists needed a great producer to get their story out. And by us being like co-stars, for me, I'm gonna speak for me, it was, it was beautiful because I didn't know it and I stayed in the studio. Like, that was the thing. Because my, my thing was, growing up, how I grew up, I never wanted to be like how my parents were.

• 14:20Speaker 02

  And what I mean by that, like, I always wanted, I looked up to my parents, but I didn't like the situation that they were in when it came to jobs. And the job would lay them off. And I kept hearing those stories when I was a kid. So I said, when I get this type of job, I don't want to get laid off. So as I was a producer, I just stayed in the studio. And I was like, man, I can't, they like me now, but they might don't like me tomorrow. So that always was like my mindset. So I stayed in the studio, getting checks. But I was like, oh, that's cool. That's dope. Never really would buy stuff like that. Not go, only thing I spent my money on is going to the record store, buying up all the CDs, like $10,000 worth of CDs and sampling them. That was my whole.

• 15:02Ryan Clark?

  Sample their ass up.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, just sample drum sounds, making my sounds. And just, that was my, that was my only spinach that I did. And then, you know, as time went on, started seeing people that is like, man, you need to go out, man, enjoy the fruit of your labor. And that's when you crash and burn. Because that's when the enemy comes in, you start feeling yourself. You don't, you don't see it right away. It takes years. It might take a year. Some people crash out in six months. But for the most part, it's an ongoing process. You know, you party, you do this, you got the money. Then you start feeling like I'm bigger than the music. And that's when I crashed, you know what I'm saying? I'm like, I get to it, it's last time at the studio.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  Not working on my craft, just, you know, living the lifestyle that really wasn't meant for me, but trying to do something that's not my personality. And when you try to do something that's not your personality, you fall into the rabbit hole. And a lot of people, the good thing I think about me falling to the rabbit hole, that God, Jesus Christ himself, picked me back up. It wasn't no man, you know what I'm saying? So it was like, just prayer. And I would say my mom was a big part of that, as a prayer warrior, that she was. She always, you know, prayed for me and always, you know, didn't try to tell me nothing because she know, like, telling her son, you know, who got money. Then I started noticing like certain things, like if my family come around, I started feeling

• 16:26Speaker 02

  like they went on my level, you know, didn't say it. But you know, it's a feeling, like, you know, you, and that's just the honest truth. Because if you feel awkward towards your family, that's what you basically telling. You, that they're not on, you know, because you hanging around this society and these, and your family's still there. So it's like, I just went through a phase where like, got too high and God had to bring me back down, you know what I'm saying? But that was the thing about being a superstar.

• 16:55Channing Crowder?

  Tim, that bell curve though, from working from fear is what you're saying? Working from not trying to get fired to being on top of the world?

• 17:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:06Channing Crowder?

  To now, assuming that's what it is, and then, you know what I'm saying? That, that, that turn, bro, RC said it, we lived through that, we lived through the turn.

• 17:16Speaker 02

  Did you live through the, did?

• 17:17Channing Crowder?

  We didn't, we didn't see it though, that's what I was gonna ask you about. We didn't see the dips, we saw the.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  Nah, I saw the dips.

• 17:22Channing Crowder?

  We saw the magoo's, we saw you and, you and bro, God rest his soul, like, we saw that. But, but, for you to say that I was in the studio not to lose my job, and then you're the number one producer, Grammy Award winner, bro, that's crazy to hear. The last thing you say is crazy to hear. Take us through that damn bell curve, bro, that's cra- I, when you said it, I'm like, bro, this is nuts.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  It's just like, I do it now, like, I just, the accolades are the accolades, right? And...

• 17:52Speaker 02

  That's how I always been is like, I didn't never really care about that. So for me, it was just, I never looked at the numbers. It was just like, I go by the feeling of the people around me. So that's, and so y'all seeing it going up, I was just like, okay, cool. Cause you let me know that it was going up, but I didn't look at the accolades to see it was going up. I went by the people. Back then, we was outside. So when we outside, we get to feel the people, not, not metrics. So the, the people let me know I was doing good. But when you start getting into the metrics and the numbers, now you get, you fall, you pivot off to you. They knock you off your square.

• 18:31Fred Taylor?

  Obviously you've worked with some amazing talent and the list is, shit, I ain't gonna name them all. If you watching the show, you go look it up. The list is crazy. But it seems that when you got with, let's say, when you did music with Jay and the likes of Justin Timberlake's, like you just shot through the roof, right? Was that? He was on top of the roof. No, but. The ceiling is the roof.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  I mean, I don't, I don't know.

• 18:55Fred Taylor?

  Proving you. The ceiling is the roof.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  Whatever it is, it's, we was there.

• 19:00Fred Taylor?

  They was there, boy. And, and, and sometimes you can, like, you can, that success, man, like, when you, when you're up there, you know, coming down, you, you mentioned crashing, like, that can ruin you. Was that success too much for you?

• 19:14Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Because it's like, you know, what happens, I think what goes on with all of us, and I see it on social media, we always chase other people. But you gotta ask God, what, what God got for you? And a lot of, we don't do that as humans. We look at other people, say, I want that, I want that. And sometimes chasing that, you can't handle that. Everybody got a gas tank and everybody can handle what they can handle. And you gotta, you gotta stand on that. You might jump off, you might like jumping off a plane with parachute. I'm not jumping off a plane with no parachute. I gotta be accepted to that and be cool with that. But a lot of times, because we all in the same fraternity, we think we all can do what everybody can do.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  No, we can be in the classroom, but everybody just levels to it. And I just, I didn't realize that it was levels to it, you know what I'm saying? And I, it's just like, I thought I was bigger than my talent. And that's when. The separation came, like, okay, I gave you a talent. But when you think that you don't respect the talent that I gave you, you think that you bigger and people around you telling you that you bigger. Like, it's just going out doing what you ain't supposed to be doing. You know what I'm saying? And then you just change.

• 20:30Channing Crowder?

  You like fame? It don't seem like you like fame.

• 20:35Speaker 02

  Nah.

• 20:38Channing Crowder?

  Really?

• 20:39Speaker 02

  Nah, I look at myself. You seen this movie Ready Player One?

• 20:43Speaker 02

  You seen the guy who made the whole thing? His whole, he didn't care about fame. He just cared about crafting a game that you love.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  That's my fame. Something, making something that you love, that you come to me and talk about. That's famous for me. Because I'm a builder. I'm not a person like, ooh, ooh. I'm glad to build something that stands bigger than me. Because it allows me to go be normal. You know what I'm saying? It's be regular. Because it's all about what you build. I don't need the fame to be like, oh, he's the guy who did this. He's the guy, okay, I'm just a man. You could do something too. You know, that's how I look at it.

• 21:19Ryan Clark?

  We all have this level of escapism, right? Whether it's, I use my talent to escape what I come from. And sometimes when we get to a certain point, we use other things, whether it be women, alcohol, drugs, whatever it is, to escape what's haunting us in that moment. You've spoken openly about addiction. What do you feel like your addiction was helping you escape?

• 21:50Speaker 02

  Addiction give you power. It gives you, make you feel like, it brings out the inner demon in you, and it stands forefront. So addiction makes you fit in. Like the thing that you're not, when you don't fit in, addiction makes you fit in. And when you in it, you like, it's like you, it's just like, it gives you like this superpower that really like...

• 22:15Speaker 02

  That's why people don't want to let go because it makes you feel like I can go hang out with this girl that I normally wouldn't talk to that girl. But that drug boosted my ego to go do it. Then you come down and you like, you dealing with all this depression because you're not yourself, so. And a lot of things, it made me just be numb to anything. Like that's, I think that's the main thing. It made me numb to any situation going on in my life. It made me not like pay attention to my money, certain things. It just, just keep living, just floating. That's what it allows you to do and that's not life. And then when you get off of it, you're irritable, you don't know how to talk to people, you're just a whole different person.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  So to me, drugs were just an escape to be, let's go, let's do this, let's do this, no care in the world. That's what it does.

• 23:07Speaker 00

  Before this. There's this. As you celebrate the game, take a deeper look at its roots. The people growing the grass, paving the lots, welding the goalposts, inspecting every football. The hardworking people that make every Sunday possible. Carhartt is proud to outfit the crews behind the game. Visit carhartt.com/jointhetrades to learn more.

• 23:37Ryan Clark?

  Talk about the bottom of that. There's no recovery from addiction without hitting a point within yourself that makes you say, this is it, right? Like I can't take anymore, I won't make it another day like this. What was that point for you where you said, nah, Tim, you gotta change?

• 23:59Speaker 02

  God tapped me on my shoulder, showing me at one point, I was in the bed, but out of my body and seeing myself. I guess if you would say death, right? Sitting there is like this is, you know, this is gonna be you. And God just spoke to me like, you gotta get off this. I got bigger works for you to do. I need you off this. And then me talking like I'm not a person that scream out loud. And like I talked to God in my mind, then I talk like I'm talking now. And I'm like, oh, God, what I'm gonna do, how I'm gonna get off this. But it really comes, God gave me the will, which I always had, was a strong will. You know what I'm saying?

• 24:39Speaker 02

  I can get addicted, but I can get, I can be unaddicted real quick once my will is made. I was like, God, um, I'm a, how this gonna work? I don't wanna, I don't wanna go to a clinic or nothing like that. Cause I was, I was that guy that I needed to go to. He weaned me off. He weaned me off. He put my, my wife today beside me, who's been there, just like a guardian angel, just making sure I didn't die in my sleep, stuff like that. But it was, it was God who, who weaned me off. Like, and I was on a hundred and eighty milligrams a day.

• 25:14Channing Crowder?

  Of what, bro?

• 25:15Speaker 02

  Oxycontin.

• 25:16Channing Crowder?

  Oxycontin?

• 25:17Speaker 02

  Oxycontin and Vicodin.

• 25:19Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  And went through withdrawals and withdrawals. And it was bad, and it got super bad. It's like God has put his hand on my shoulder and like, and I just, it was cool. And as I, and after that, it's like, I never had a taste for it again.

• 25:36Channing Crowder?

  Wow.

• 25:37Speaker 02

  And it was like in steps. So it was like a hundred and eighty, maybe down to a hundred. Then don't get the pill and then it's going through sweat, withdrawal. Then it get down to maybe fifty. Then after that, it was just like, it wasn't no twenty, ten, it was just like.

• 25:56Channing Crowder?

  Over turkey.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  Nothing. And then after that, it's just me going through the body, you know? The mood switches, you know? That was the only, like, really bad side effect my family had to endure. That was the only really thing, but God really weaned me off to the point where you, I see people, you could put it in front of me, I'm not a relapse or nothing. I'd be like, I can remember that every time. I could be like, that was a cool time. I can look at, I said.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  That pert, boy, that pert dirty. I know that. That pert the A, man. You a mean guy, boy, but I tell you. I tell you, it ain't worth it, brother. It ain't worth it because, you know what I'm saying? You just killing your body. And then, once I got off, it just was like,

• 26:42Speaker 02

  it was a blessing. I think about it all the time. People always ask me, "How you doing? You didn't take us a box off?" I said, "Nah." Once it was out my system, I really took it out. I had no take the desire. Crooked doctor selling it to me. I would spend like $6,000 a month.

• 26:57Channing Crowder?

  Damn. Damn. You would slide to the dude at Walgreens, bruh?

• 27:00Speaker 02

  No, I had a private doctor. That's what I'm saying, superstardom, bro. Like, when you want fame, everything comes to you. That stuff be real, bruh. When they start, I'm telling you, and it be real. It be real, and they be like, so... Because I got shot, so my arm still aches from the bullet. So, I use that as an excuse, like, "My arm hurt my nerve and blah, blah, blah." Yeah, you, and the doctor try to sweet talk you. "Okay, I'm gonna subscribe this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." Now, I think about it, I was like, "I should go kill this."

• 27:34Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying?

• 27:35Channing Crowder?

  Got us once.

• 27:35Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying? Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, bruh, so you think about all that, you be like, "Man." But I thank God, man, it's a blessing to, um... I try to, you know, I tell that story to help, you know, to help a lot of people, people I can reach. That's why I look, I don't have no problem. At first, it was like, I'm like, "Man, I ain't telling that." You know, but then God was like, "You gotta tell your story because you gonna help somebody." Or somebody might need your help. You know what I'm saying? And I, and it's like, people ask me, there are people who are addicted, like, and I tell people, I went on a Tammy Hall show, I was like, "You really can't talk to a person that's addicted." If they don't want it in their mind, and they don't really want to change.

• 28:19Speaker 02

  You just gotta keep praying.

• 28:20Ryan Clark?

  Being famous, did somebody try to talk to you though? Because a lot of times when you the guy, ain't nobody gonna come to you and be like, "Tim, I think you're doing too much."

• 28:29Speaker 02

  You know, like, nobody famous, but...

• 28:31Ryan Clark?

  No, no, I'm saying with you being famous, sometimes people could be scared around you to say...

• 28:35Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. I think that was a big case because of the attitude that it gives drugs bring on a certain demon that allow people not to be approached because it's so loud on you, you know what I'm saying? So, there were people that was trying, you know, like, were saying stuff, like I said, my wife, she was saying stuff, but you're not really hearing that. But I just, I really think about the voice of, you know, God just really like allowing me to hear her voice. You know what I'm saying? Because that demon is attacking you at all times, you know what I'm saying? So, you can't hear nothing, you know what I'm saying? And then looking at you, you know, your kids and really saying like, "I have value in this world

• 29:19Speaker 02

  and, you know, I love my kids to death. I give it, that's what I work for." So, you know, just a lot of things that God just sit down like showing you your life and you start looking at it, I'm like, "Man, I had an amazing life, but I could've did this better. I could've did that better, could've did this better." So, I just, it's just a blessing, man. Like, I, you know, I think people were trying to maybe talk, but it's hard to talk to a person that's addicted.

• 29:47Fred Taylor?

  How much of the addiction, the rehabilitation, like, how much of that overlap with the moments you crash and you weren't as inspired to go and do some of the things that you had done? Like, what type of influence that the drugs and the recovery and all that have on your music?

• 30:04Speaker 02

  I think the recovery, being on drugs and doing music was like wonderful. Because I think my music was like amazing, you know what I'm saying? And that's the whole thing.

• 30:16Channing Crowder?

  What were the drugs on?

• 30:18Speaker 02

  Maybe 2020.

• 30:22Speaker 02

  The 2020 experience.

• 30:24Ryan Clark?

  Great album.

• 30:25Speaker 02

  And then I wanna say Beyonce, I think Drunk and Love doing that. Jay-Z, Magna, Carter.

• 30:35Ryan Clark?

  What?

• 30:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:38Ryan Clark?

  Being high and doing music was great because those albums in that time was amazing. But it's like decades long of a run, right? You know, like it's late 90s, early 2000s of a run. So it's not like you needed that. Are you saying the feeling of producing music?

• 31:01Speaker 02

  It was fun during that time. But those were cool albums. But my best work was done when I wasn't on drugs.

• 31:09Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 31:11Speaker 02

  That's facts. It was just fun creating. I'm doing all them albums back to back. So it was just that experience. And as I look back at it now, it's like they were great, but they don't stand like my big records. Like Big Pimpin', Dirt Off Your Shoulder, One in a Million. Those are drug free. You know what I'm saying? So when I look back at my highlights, that's probably a dip. Even though it was still good, you know, that's just God giving talent in me. Like God's still having his hand on me.

• 31:51Speaker 02

  You know, and that's why those songs were still beautiful, but they don't have like Future Sex Love sound type of. That's when it kinda started at the end of that Future Sex Love sound, yeah.

• 32:03Ryan Clark?

  Can I ask you a question? This is a total producer question, right? So my thing always is, Tim, if I could produce music or sing, do anything, I would never put out or show anybody anything that I didn't think was great. There's this clip of you when Jay finally picked the beat for Dirt Off Your Shoulder. And you played him boo-boo songs and all, like every beat was nice. Do you believe that every beat you make is a hit? And how do you feel though? Cause you know Jay when he be.

• 32:36Ryan Clark?

  And then he'll be, you play the next one. In your mind, are you like, nah, bro, like, this the one, like, pick that one?

• 32:41Speaker 02

  When it comes to him, it's different, like, he's like, he's so prolific. So it's just like, I was just, you know, any beat he get on, I'd just be amazed at how he gonna attack it. So I guess, I don't be like, oh, pick that one. I just played the beats. And it's funny that he rapped on two of those beats, one of y'all just never heard.

• 33:00Ryan Clark?

  Really?

• 33:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I gave it to Ludacris. It was Potion. But he did a song on Potion.

• 33:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, we can never hear that one.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  That was way back. And then he actually, yeah, there's a couple ones that he did, like, so he try everything. Now, send me a pack, but back then, everything was tailor-made.

• 33:24Speaker 02

  So I did the beats on the spot. I didn't have, I ain't come in the studio with a thousand beats. I did those beats, those three, four beats.

• 33:31Ryan Clark?

  Poor.

• 33:32Speaker 02

  That session coming up. That's how I always work. I didn't have, like, a thousand beats laying around. Like, I would do it for a Pacific, because it was a project. It's like, you going shooting a movie, you not, you get the script, you go in there. They don't have a thousand movies in they, they, the director don't have a thousand movies in his, in his closet. He got each one that he directed at that time. You know what I'm saying? That's how it was back then. It's like, we go to the studio with Jay-Z, doing this album, it's a mission. I'm going there getting all the samples from the stores, in the record stores, to make these hits for him. Not going to the studio, nor tailor-made.

• 34:14Speaker 02

  I go for him, because I could, I would do the beats, because I'm always doing stuff. So I would save on my disc, but I didn't have too much room to save a lot of stuff. So I just do stuff on the spot. And Missy kept me working, so she kept all the beats.

• 34:31Ryan Clark?

  Kept me working. Her, her Missy had, Missy had you, she tied your ass up.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's like, I ain't had no beat to save. I wouldn't pull them, the only thing I was pulling up the disc for is just to load it back up to go to the studio.

• 34:44Fred Taylor?

  How long did it take you to make a beat or a song that you would call your most successful song? Or maybe a beat that you didn't love that ended up being a number one or something like that?

• 34:56Speaker 02

  I didn't like One Minute Man.

• 34:59Ryan Clark?

  It's a great song, though.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  That's what I was saying like that beat. I thought, oh. She's like, you crazy. This ain't jamming. I'm like, alright. If you think it's jamming, then I think it's jamming. I mean, I did it, but it wasn't my favorite. Until later on, I was like, oh, this kinda jamming.

• 35:16Fred Taylor?

  It took her to bring that out, though.

• 35:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. I guess. I guess. Missy Elliott is, she sees the story from the beginning to the end. Where I come in there and see it, I just wanna hear her voice on it. She gotta feel it, cuz she a female. She gotta dance to it. Choreograph the clothes, the style, how she gonna look, how everything. Like, that's how Missy is. Like, she can't just get on the beat. She gotta see the beat. She gotta see where the beat gonna take her.

• 35:48Ryan Clark?

  Did you realize, once you started working with Missy, though, how transcendent she become? From the clothes to the way she brought her songs to life? Like, there's so many artists who came behind Missy Elliott. Like, Lil Wayne credits Missy Elliott for a lot of what he does. In the moment, did you realize how much of an icon she would become in hip-hop?

• 36:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. I knew she would be big because her tenacity. Her will not to quit. You know? Missy is a warrior. Like, if, you know, if you're putting together, like, a team of wolves, what I mean wolves, you could be big and strong. But if your mentor ain't there, that means nothing. You know what I'm saying? Her mentor was there. Like, you gotta think about, she came in the game not looking like the average female that they say supposed to look like. But made you look again and be like, wait a minute. She alright. You know what I'm saying? Like, that takes a certain power.

• 36:52Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:53Speaker 02

  From a woman.

• 36:54Ryan Clark?

  Confidence, too.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, her confidence was through the roof, which gave me confidence. She the one that told me I was dope when I didn't think I was dope. She put the battery pack in my back for show.

• 37:04Channing Crowder?

  Did you ever question your music? Because you, the "yee-yum", all the, like, the noises with the acoustic stuff. That's why, every time I hear "yee-yum", I think about you. Because that was the first, you were the first person, the first producer that did those noises. What created that noise? And did you ever doubt that?

• 37:24Speaker 02

  Missy was the one who gave me my confidence. That's what she loved. So, that's what she thought my stuff was different. So, I was just doing the stuff that I know that she would like, that she would make, you know, we'll make a masterpiece and call it a day.

• 37:39Channing Crowder?

  Is that just you moving that little button up and down?

• 37:41Speaker 02

  Man, it is, for me, I was such a connoisseur of just finding stuff and experimenting. So, I would experiment, "Oh, that sounds good, let's use it." Like, "Try Again" was experiment.

• 37:54Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I was playing the bassline on this arpeggio. That's when people only use the arpeggio and it just came out. And I'm like, "Why people?" And, like, I was always the first. I'm like, "I need something new again." And it was like, arpeggio is when something's like, like, patterns, right? So, I was on the keyboard, like, it was already doing like a

• 38:14Speaker 02

  like, some kind of goofy pattern. But I was like, and it was still moving at the same time. I was like, "Ooh, that's hard." And I was like, I told my engineer, I said, "Jimmy, did you get that?" "Got it." And I was like, "Go back, go back, go back." I said, "Let's chop that up."

• 38:32Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 38:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's what we did.

• 38:34Fred Taylor?

  Is there a song you passed on that you regret?

• 38:38Speaker 02

  What you mean that I regret?

• 38:39Fred Taylor?

  Like, or a song that you wish you would have kept for someone else versus giving it to someone else?

• 38:47Speaker 02

  No, I wish I would have gave a couple songs away that I tried to, that I did keep, that I know I shouldn't have kept. But there was this record called Smile. So, it was, I knew I should have gave it to Jay-Z and Beyoncé. I knew that.

• 39:04Speaker 02

  But me was just taking the chance on trying to use that song to break an artist. And I knew that wasn't a smart move at that moment. Because that, if I would've gave that song and they would've did that song, it would've added more years to my career, which would allow me to maybe break that artist. Got it. Sometimes you need just a little bit boost. And sometimes you're like fighters going to ring. I'm ready to fight Javante. No, you're not. You need another boost. Right. But if you in there, you thinking...

• 39:39Ryan Clark?

  It's your time.

• 39:40Speaker 02

  It's your time. And rightfully, you supposed to think like that. But sometimes, there's a moment God is sending you, like, so, I'mma send this fight. And you be like, "Man, no, I won't." Better take that fight. Because that fight gonna get you ready for that fight. And so for that time, it was like, I should've just said, "You know what? Hey, we should just not do this. And let's figure out, and let me do something else." And in that way, I think I would've been a certain plateau, which would allow what I wanted to do with breaking a new artist's work.

• 40:18Ryan Clark?

  Tim, where did you learn to read people? Right? I would have to think to... Because you just, when you said beats were custom-made, right? So you have to understand who the artist is and who the person is to know, if I make these beats, it's still gonna be me, but I gotta give them the part of me that matches what they wanna do. Like, I remember the first time I ever saw you, or I saw the video with Nelly Furtado, I was like, "Holy hell." Right? Like, this is, this is Timbo. And now he's making these beats. And it's black people, white people, Latino people. We all vibing to it the same. It is a universal language he's been able to give us.

• 41:02Ryan Clark?

  When did you learn to understand the artists like that? Or how did you learn to understand the artists like that to bring out the best in them?

• 41:09Speaker 02

  It really wasn't me understanding them. They was coming to me for what I had. It allowed me to say, "Oh, they wanted to know if they could sing over these beats that I had." So it's like, for like Justin, he was like, "No, I want what you give to Missy." "Oh, okay."

• 41:27Speaker 02

  And then he flipped it, which allowed me to say, "I didn't see it this way."

• 41:32Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 41:32Speaker 02

  Then I started to create these elements, tell them eight for him.

• 41:38Speaker 02

  Because he came in there, "I want what you do with Missy and Aaliyah."

• 41:44Speaker 02

  And I'm like, "All right." I ain't looking to say, "I didn't have no study on, this a boy band." None of that. It was just, "You want what I do, so let me give you what I do." And I just started telling, making stuff. And then, you know, I think there was a couple of records we did at first, before we made Crime in the River. And those records, he started singing on, I'm like,

• 42:08Speaker 02

  "Oh, this crazy." I didn't know what we was making, but I just knew it was different, which allowed me to get into his zone.

• 42:15Channing Crowder?

  But how does that work?

• 42:18Channing Crowder?

  When you, at the start of your career, "Hey, shoot me a beat, bruh." I just shoot you a text, and then now-

• 42:24Speaker 02

  Well, now it's like that.

• 42:25Channing Crowder?

  When you were- About what I'm saying, but like-

• 42:26Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, he like Fred age, so they wasn't texting at first.

• 42:30Channing Crowder?

  Oh, okay.

• 42:31Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, when he first started-

• 42:32Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, we had Skopane. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that.

• 42:35Channing Crowder?

  So, Tim, when the pigeon, when the pigeon used to fly and land on your-

• 42:39Speaker 02

  No, I had the little Skote, the Skote, the Skopane. Come on, I had that BlackBerry. Come on now, I ain't that goddamn old.

• 42:45Channing Crowder?

  From that, bruh, like, it's funny, like, how does that work from "shoot me a beat", and-

• 42:51Speaker 02

  Well, how does that work?

• 42:51Channing Crowder?

  Somebody can steal a beat so easy. Back in the day, now, how does all that work?

• 42:56Speaker 02

  Technology make it accessible. You know, it's like, McDonald's fries, McDonald's Big Macs should be the jump off, right?

• 43:03Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 43:04Speaker 02

  Now, you can get fries from everywhere. So, it's just, that's how the same is with, you know, with music. It's like, now, what social is more about, the person in the forefront, and the music becomes secondary. So, now sending the BP, "Oh, send me a pack." A pack, so there's no more synergy of chemistry to me. It's all about- Who's gonna advertise this beat? The beat's just for your advertisement.

• 43:31Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 43:32Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying? But if you get a beat from a person that already has a name, it's just like, okay, I'm gonna use his name. It's not so much about the beats, it's about, oh, it's Timbaland beat with such and such and such. So it's about the advertisement. It's not, it used to be about the sonics of the music. Now it's about advertising the names. So the beat packs, to me, has less value. If I send you a beat because you're just picking the one that's gonna make you stand out, you're not thinking about this intricate sound. You like, okay, pull that up, boom, boom, boom. Now you're shooting a video. I'm just calling from your management team or somebody, or you don't even get a call, you just find out it's out.

• 44:17Ryan Clark?

  Damn.

• 44:18Speaker 02

  I didn't see it going that way, but I should've known since I was always ahead of the curve. I just refused to accept digital like that. And I should've known because I'm the one who changed it for a lot of other people before, you know, when I came.

• 44:32Ryan Clark?

  How did you change it when you said?

• 44:33Speaker 02

  There was like players, myself, he's not playing nothing, but I can find something that somebody played and manipulated. So they say, oh, he's chopping up something. No, I'm just, I wanted you to play it like this, but I'm not gonna call you to go play it like this. I could just chop it up and do it myself. They didn't look at that as playing.

• 44:49Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  Or he's not really producing. Yes, I am. I'm making the same cake, but I'm adding different ingredients. Where you adding the natural, what you know it to be, I'm going against the grain. And mine's gonna taste better than yours.

• 45:05Ryan Clark?

  Mmm. Recipe.

• 45:07Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 45:08Speaker 00

  Before this,

• 45:13Speaker 00

  there's this.

• 45:16Speaker 00

  As you celebrate the game, take a deeper look at its roots. The people growing the grass, paving the lots, welding the goalposts, inspecting every football. The hard-working people that make every Sunday possible. Carhartt is proud to outfit the crews behind the game. Visit carhartt.com/jointhetrades to learn more.

• 45:38Ryan Clark?

  Timbo, like, so, we lived, like, our jobs were noisy, right? When, when you're in that stadium and the fans are there and you're focused on, on doing your job, like, that's when we're the biggest. That's when you feel the most alive, you know what I mean? But where a lot of our people get in trouble is the quiet, right? When the applause stops and when nobody's there to pat you on the back to be like, "Yeah, Tim, that's one of the best beats I ever heard." Or, "Yeah, Tim, you and JT went crazy on this album." When you started to get in your quiet moments, what were those like?

• 46:18Speaker 02

  Basically, you said, well, nobody, like, cheering you on. And you kind of like, you fall off.

• 46:23Ryan Clark?

  Yes.

• 46:24Speaker 02

  Well, I have hit those things twice. I think in my career, like, took a dip. You get your competitive back, that like, "Y'all got me effed up" type of moment. You know what I'm saying? So, when you get into that, it's like you find yourself again. So, I had a couple of those moments where it's like, "Oh, Tim ain't gon', he ain't hot no more." What? You sound crazy. And a lot of times, it'd be the enemy. The enemy, you know, really be you, you, your enemy talking to you. And then you might hear some people, you, you really go back at the looks. You not get the same looks or the same applause. And sometimes you just could be like, they get used to you. "Oh, that's Timbo."

• 47:08Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 47:09Speaker 02

  "He dope." You don't be excited no more. I'm like, man, that's what the problem is. We want that excitement. We chase that excitement.

• 47:15Ryan Clark?

  That high.

• 47:16Speaker 02

  Now, it's more like, back then, it was just like, it got, it got you, but you need that because you need to see who you're made of. I think everybody need to go to the top and take a dip because falling down really determines your true success, how you get back up. You know, run it up there, it's cool because you, there's no such thing as falling down because you still running up. You just get hit, but get up there, then. Pull the rug from underneath you.

• 47:44Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 47:45Speaker 02

  Now what you can do.

• 47:46Fred Taylor?

  What you want to do.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, sometimes those noises of like not getting touched on the shoulder help you get back up. I think as time go on, when years start to go and you don't really get like, I think it happens when we get older. That's when the applause become.

• 48:03Fred Taylor?

  Yeah, right.

• 48:04Speaker 02

  I want to say our culture, black culture, kind of like that, it's tough, right?

• 48:11Speaker 02

  But you gotta applaud yourself.

• 48:14Fred Taylor?

  For sure.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  You gotta applaud yourself. You gotta know that. You gotta look at your highlight and say,

• 48:21Speaker 02

  "I did that."

• 48:23Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 48:23Speaker 02

  You just gotta fight to the noise. You been there before. It's the millennials and the Gen Z's now. And so it's like, we not old, old, but at the same time, we not active.

• 48:36Fred Taylor?

  You're not outside as much.

• 48:37Speaker 02

  You're like, we not as hot, but you still, like, when you say a legend, you could do legendary shit. And by doing legendary shit, it's just rethinking, recalibrating what you do and who you do it with. And what made me, I always use this movie Cars 3, Lightning McQueen, was the main race driver. Winning all the time. It hurt him in car three because he had that spunk tumor.

• 49:02Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 49:02Speaker 02

  Not knowing that the girl was his best kept secret. She was faster, so he put, he said, "You know what? I gotta rethink how I be Lightning McQueen."

• 49:11Fred Taylor?

  Mentor.

• 49:12Speaker 02

  Mentor.

• 49:13Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 49:13Speaker 02

  That's gonna keep you.

• 49:15Fred Taylor?

  Now you still in it.

• 49:16Speaker 02

  You still in it, and you still hot.

• 49:18Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 49:19Speaker 02

  You just gotta find a way to be hot, and you have to accept that this young boy snare is better than my snare. That young boy kick is better than my kick.

• 49:30Speaker 02

  So let me go to this young boy, get his game set, and learn to say, "You know what? You should move that there, move that there." He be like, "That's why you Timbo the King." I'm so used to being hands-on, but now you have to learn how to pivot what you are.

• 49:42Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 49:42Speaker 02

  That's why y'all show is to pivot.

• 49:43Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 49:44Speaker 02

  You have to pivot who you are and be great at that, and now you're a superstar in another realm.

• 49:48Fred Taylor?

  Right. There are a lot of dope producers out there now. Do you have like a favorite or top three or four favorites or whatever?

• 49:58Speaker 02

  I love Metro. I love Mustard.

• 50:02Speaker 02

  Wheezy, Turbo, of course all my peers, Mike Dean, Danger, Scott Storch. That era boy. Yeah, but like, the top ones I named were new kids. Mike Will made it, because those young guys are really like, they came in, you know, they came in the back door and kind of like, told us, say, "Y'all old heads, go sit down."

• 50:27Speaker 02

  I mean, I accepted. I'd be like, "All right, y'all got it." I'm like, "You got it for now." Yeah. I'm watching. You know what I'm saying? I'm learning. You know what I'm saying? But you gotta understand, music is a young sport. Yeah. And I think everything is young. You know what I'm saying? From basketball to boxing to everything is young. But it's like, if you're gonna be old, you gotta know how to fit in into what the young people still look at you as being young.

• 50:49Ryan Clark?

  But Tim, but there's a difference between those sports you named and what you do. See, like, once we couldn't do it, it's over.

• 50:55Speaker 02

  We gotta go.

• 50:56Ryan Clark?

  Right? And that kind of gives you peace. Because you could lie to yourself, right? Like, I could look at these safeties who are playing now, and I could be like, "Yeah, but when I was 29, he couldn't hit like me, right? Or he didn't do this, right?" But for you, you're still in that business. So what is it like that, okay, now, I know his kick's better. I know his snare's better. But I'm still, Tim, like you said, I can still do legendary stuff. What is the feeling of falling back but not falling off?

• 51:30Speaker 02

  Man, you know, because I used to work so hard. It is like, work smarter, not harder. So now I learn how to say, "I did it. You ain't do it." So, because you ain't do it, you should help me out and do it.

• 51:45Speaker 02

  That's how I do it. It's like, yo, I'ma show you what to do. Yeah. And I'ma give you some game. Right. How can I lose? It's like, I'm smarter. It's like, I'm not gonna... But it took me a minute to process that because I was so hands-on and...

• 52:01Speaker 02

  God just doing through, through all my transitions, he just purged me, all that vanity, all that ego, of thinking I'm the man, when I'm like, no, I wanna be the man to introduce the man.

• 52:16Speaker 02

  The next man. So I'm like, oh, you can go ahead, and I'm cool with that. I'm not a person to get jealous, or, I'm like, the more people that get to the top, the better the conversation's gonna be, better in life, if I'm keep living. Cause once you at the top, you, I know you gonna hit some points that I already seen. And the people hit me, like, Mustard hit me a couple of times, like, yo, I wanna ask you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I said, man, you gotta go this route, or go that route. And I look at him, you didn't hear Mustard till he put the Kendrick. And now, that, that record probably, he can, he can not probably work for a couple of years, and get this, and craft a whole new sound. Because that record will be so high, and will last so long,

• 53:00Speaker 02

  it put ten years on his career, just one song.

• 53:03Channing Crowder?

  With that, bro, with like the beef, I wanted to ask you, as a producer with beef, knowing the Kendrick and Drake stuff going on.

• 53:10Speaker 02

  That's beyond our pay grade.

• 53:11Channing Crowder?

  But, do you look at those, you know what I'm saying, do you was like, okay, cause, like you say, Mustard, Metro, where Drake started it, where Future and them started it, like, do you look at the bigger picture of beats, or is it like, bro, I'm gonna give you five ass beats, you say what you want on it?

• 53:26Speaker 02

  Like, our job is to make the artist look good. Whatever you say on it, is what you say on it. You know, it's like a car dealership, I just sell you the car, man.

• 53:36Channing Crowder?

  That's your car, that's your beat.

• 53:37Speaker 02

  I can't.

• 53:39Channing Crowder?

  And you step back?

• 53:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:41Channing Crowder?

  But once you, once you know they beefing.

• 53:44Speaker 02

  Hey, that's on them. I mean, I mean, hey, it allows you as a producer. To try to make a hard beat. You're not thinking about the beef. You're thinking about the hard beat that I can make. That maybe he's gonna take and go crazy on. That's it. We don't, we not, that's not our.

• 54:05Fred Taylor?

  Like you say, it's.

• 54:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, because we are, we are creators. We are music lovers. Music, people who love music, we don't beef. You know what I'm saying? Like, we, music is a harmony, a harmony thing. People come together with music. So, no producer should be beefing with artists. And it's just not, that, that, that's not our forte.

• 54:25Fred Taylor?

  Being an OG, being legendary, knowing you got it. Knowing you can still go get it. But also, you got family. You know, you got kids, you got your bride. You know, you just got life. Like, how's balancing that versus, you know, still having that desire at times to still prove to people that you still him?

• 54:45Speaker 02

  It's like a mental health thing. Because, you know, all our life, like, y'all been sports people. And it's like, when you don't do it no more, it's like, no, I don't, it's a feeling that you can't describe. But once you center what it is, you just learn to just balance yourself. I don't, I, it's hard to explain. It's like, I don't have the desires I used to have. That's the best way. It's like, I don't have the desire to go out to a club. I don't have a desire to go out to restaurants and just kick it at the table all day. After we eat, let's go. Like, I don't wanna, I'm tired. My body, my, God gives you signs. And you gotta participate in those signs. Like you say, I can't go dribble. I wanna do that, I can't.

• 55:29Speaker 02

  I mean, I can, but to a certain degree. You have to have limitations on what you do. It's like, I don't have the desire to go to a club. I don't have the desire to do these things. And once that desire is taken out, it's easy to balance.

• 55:43Ryan Clark?

  I have a question. Who made better music? Thick Tim or Slim Tim?

• 55:47Speaker 02

  Big Tim. I think Big Tim.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  That was happier Tim. That was like, that was like, that was like, you know, that's like, you know, you 19, you, you in it. You know what I'm saying? When you that, you don't even know you was big. You just, the music had you thinking you already was small. That's just facts. The music, no, like, you don't know. So, I'm like, walking around like, damn, I got titties like she got titties.

• 56:17Speaker 02

  That's when you know.

• 56:18Channing Crowder?

  A T P?

• 56:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're like, yeah.

• 56:24Ryan Clark?

  We all got breasts.

• 56:25Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, everybody here with breasts.

• 56:28Speaker 02

  But when the music, you so, you so...

• 56:31Speaker 02

  You, you, you, you don't see that.

• 56:33Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 56:34Speaker 02

  You don't see that. You, you see that when you ain't hot. And that's when you say, damn, big and I ain't hot too.

• 56:40Channing Crowder?

  There's that little nipple sweat. When did you know you were special? There's something about your ears, your mind, it's something that made you special. It's other dudes that love computers, that love beats, that love music. But now, you've done what you did. When did you know that?

• 56:52Speaker 02

  I think the time I put into it. I think the time you put into something lets you know that you different. Even your friends will let you know, like, all the time throwing a football, like, yo, he different.

• 57:02Ryan Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:03Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying? You don't even know why, you, you just be...

• 57:05Channing Crowder?

  Right.

• 57:07Speaker 02

  You don't even know, you just doing it.

• 57:08Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 57:09Speaker 02

  Because it's something you wake up and do. That's, I think, me, even to this day, I wake up and just excited to do music because it's, all these new tools are out. So it allows me to be as creative as I want to be, without limitation. So, it's those things that let you know that you special because you do special things, like, you don't do nothing but just goddamn listen to a music, a record all day? Oh, you different. Nigga, you different. And when people say that, yeah, you right, I am.

• 57:35Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 57:36Speaker 02

  And I, I advise them to be, find your differentness. You know what I'm saying? Like...

• 57:40Channing Crowder?

  Your lane.

• 57:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, what you think you like to do.

• 57:44Ryan Clark?

  Tim, you know, we recently, they had the wildfires in Los Angeles. So many entertainers lost homes and, you know, all of their possessions. You know, we asked this question to ourselves. If we had to evacuate our homes and we can only take one thing with us, our prized possession, something that we wanted to keep with us throughout our life, what would that thing be for you?

• 58:11Speaker 02

  Man, Earth is not my home, I'm just visiting. So nothing from this earth. As long as I got my family with me, we figured it out. Ain't nothing I can look at and be like, I mean, of course, I want my computer to be, but my computer always kind of be on you most time. Like, you know what I'm saying? I asked the producers, how would you make music if there wasn't no computer? Just like my guy Lindstrom, he be doing it on the tables. The table is the first drum machine. So long as you got your hands and got a willpower, like, if I couldn't do that, then I'd be something different. But like any earthly possessions, those are just possessions. You know what I'm saying? As long as my family is safe.

• 58:53Speaker 02

  And, you know, of course, you're gonna think about it, because now you gotta go the necessities that you gotta get. But God will provide, so, you know.

• 59:02Fred Taylor?

  Absolutely.

• 59:03Speaker 02

  So I can't really say nothing like, you know, I know people get painters and all these things, but those are just, those are just fruit of your labor, right?

• 59:14Fred Taylor?

  Right. During a time about five years ago, we all thought the world was going in, and y'all provided us the verses, right?

• 59:23Fred Taylor?

  In that process, you know, you probably fantasize like, ah, we can do this and do that when you guys created it. Was there like an ideal verses battle that you probably had in your head that we never got a chance to see?

• 59:35Speaker 02

  Oh, no, because they're coming up.

• 59:37Fred Taylor?

  Ooh.

• 59:38Speaker 02

  Verses is something that from an idea started from albums to building a tech company on top of a tech company.

• 59:46Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying? And captivating the audience, which is the culture. That's why we made a deal with Trilla, like, to elevate. That didn't go well. We brought it back, and now we own it. Now we're over with X just for monetization. And now it's like, we built something, now let's really build out what we have, because we have something special. And right now, I feel like we still in the pandemic, you know, in a different way, right? And everybody always say, we need verses back.

• 1:00:19Speaker 02

  For me, it was about building something that stands bigger than who we are. Versus is bigger than Timbaland. Versus is bigger than Swizz. And to me, that was what I always wanted to build, something that was bigger than my name. Because I always, because I want to play the background. I don't want to be in front. And so Versus is like, oh, those are guys created Versus, not like, oh, that's Tim and Swizz and Versus. No, it's Versus then Tim and Swizz. And that's what I love, because like, well, man, Versus, go and do it, man, go home. Go to sleep. But Versus, you can go ahead, like, that's what I love. You want to build products that are bigger than you. I don't want to be the product.

• 1:01:01Speaker 02

  I want to be the genius of what I am today that build this magnificent product, like, brought to you by Timbaland. Oh, that's Timbaland product, oh, man, this, this, that's, but I'm over here chilling.

• 1:01:15Speaker 02

  That's life. Creating. So that's what, that's what Versus was for me.

• 1:01:19Fred Taylor?

  With that, what's been your biggest pivot in life? Like, it's that one moment you can look back on and say, with or without this moment happening, I wouldn't be who I am.

• 1:01:28Speaker 02

  I think in life, we still making pivots. I think, I don't know if I got to that point, but I feel like I'm right there. I feel like building Versus and the trials that we are facing, that we overcome, that we're now about to and are soon announce, I think I'm building a legacy. You know what I'm saying? When you build legacy, it, it, you know, it started off one way, now it's going to go to another way. You know what I'm saying? Imagine if we, imagine Jim McMahon building WWE, look how it started to where it's at now. I feel like we did that for the culture with Versus, but we have to go through stages. And we're going through those stages, and I feel like we'll come back

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  through this podcast again, and I could tell you probably a year from now.

• 1:02:13Fred Taylor?

  I just love it.

• 1:02:14Speaker 02

  If it wasn't for me sticking through the storm.

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  I would have never be, it would never be this. And I don't know what this is. This is not, this could not be money. This could be like a world life-changing thing because of what we created. And standing on it when people like, oh, it's over. Oh, they ain't coming back. Oh, they ain't this and that. And you know, you gotta hear that. But when God got a shield around you, it don't really affect you because you know what you built. And I know what you saying is, when you say stuff like that, you miss it. You just don't know how to say, I miss it.

• 1:02:49Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, that's real.

• 1:02:51Speaker 02

  So I understand that.

• 1:02:53Channing Crowder?

  What's the regrets though? What's the regrets? Cause the best time, but what's the thing you look back on and say, damn?

• 1:03:01Speaker 02

  Getting on drugs.

• 1:03:03Ryan Clark?

  That'll do it.

• 1:03:07Ryan Clark?

  That'll do it, dawg.

• 1:03:10Speaker 02

  Damn, definitely.

• 1:03:12Ryan Clark?

  Man, we appreciate you, man. I, just for me, I know you've been in the studio with so many of the greats. For us, being football players, man, and being able to put those headphones on before games. And you truly be soundtracks of our lives, of our careers, man. It's a complete honor, honestly, for us.

• 1:03:31Speaker 02

  It's an honor, man. It's an honor to be on your show called The Pivot, which I'm in my life of a pivot. So, you know, and just watching y'all guys to say, come together to be like, to make this move. Because I know what it takes. A lot of people can't get up out the couch like, we gonna try something. And then, you know, you try to do something with your homeboys, never go right. And you go through your phases. I know I watch y'all go through certain phases and to get to this point. So when you get knocked down, even in this phase, I know y'all probably got side-rode it. Now you had to say, God dang it, we was on up.

• 1:04:04Channing Crowder?

  Yep.

• 1:04:04Speaker 02

  In that dip, but y'all in this, this season of your life. And this show, the same question you ask me, man, if it wasn't for this, man. And I feel like what y'all doing, look at you, you got jackets, you got merch, you got a whole thing. Would you ever saw this when you was playing the football?

• 1:04:20Channing Crowder?

  No.

• 1:04:23Ryan Clark?

  Hey, and that's the pivot.

• 1:04:26Speaker 02

  Man, that's love, bro.

• 1:04:27Ryan Clark?

  You awesome, man.

• 1:04:28Speaker 02

  Thank you, bro.

• 1:04:29Channing Crowder?

  Man, real talk, bro.

• 1:04:31Speaker 02

  Thank y'all, man.

• 1:04:32Channing Crowder?

  Yes, sir.

• 1:04:32Ryan Clark?

  Chan, Doc kinda gave me that talent, though. To create music? Oh, y'all be so annoyed with me?

• 1:04:38Channing Crowder?

  Bro, that shit's so stupid.

• 1:04:39Ryan Clark?

  I would make music all the time.

• 1:04:40Channing Crowder?

  I went on YouTube and just put in Timbaland mixtape on the way down here for that hour? Bro. Bro, your fucking catalog is so dumb. I don't know who you was talking to, but you were like, "I had to change the sound because I only had so many buttons."

• 1:04:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:52Channing Crowder?

  So I had to do that. So like, when I started listening to it, I'm like, "You, you, you, you."

• 1:04:57Speaker 02

  Just doing it in my engineer, working with me, helping me out.

• 1:05:00Channing Crowder?

  This nigga just changing the same tone and just...

• 1:05:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, just making a difference.

• 1:05:04Channing Crowder?

  It's stupid, though, man, yeah. And I heard you as a Metro, you was like, "Do you see music?

• 1:05:11Channing Crowder?

  Hear it?" He was like, "I feel it."