Edd’s MANtra: Say It Ain’t So, Timbo



While at work the other day, I was reading through Billboard’s Decade Awards.

 

And don’t y’all get holier-than-thou on a brother surfing the ‘Net at work. I bet 98% of the people reading this post now are on the clock.

 

And we love each and every one of you for it!

Anyway, my boy Timbaland was named songwriter of the decade for his contributions on 63 (!) songs that charted over the past 10 years. Many of you know I’m a big supporter of Tim. I was down with his work waaaaay back in the day when he was producing songs for Jodeci. That’s back when Missy Elliott had those fingerwaves and Magoo was doing nothing. My, how times change. Except for Magoo.

Therefore, it pained me to hear that Tim is ready to hang it up. From MTV.com:

“I was done with hip-hop a long time ago. Once my generation left, I left. I do it, but there’s nobody from my generation besides Jay who’s doing it. I look at Lil Wayne as being from my generation. Some people are still acceptable. Kanye is acceptable from my generation.

After my last album, I know where my bread and butter is at. I know 75 percent [of the people who buy my album] are women who love Timbaland and most are the women who watch ‘Desperate Housewives’ and all those others.

I did this research. It’s the women who watch ‘Sex and the City,’ ‘Desperate Housewives’ — all the real go-to-the-bar women like Timbaland, and mostly European women.

It lets me know that my fanbase is mostly women and they are from all cultures. So it’s not a person who loves mostly hip-hop. It’s a person who loves everything besides hip-hop.

So according to Timbaland, I’m a European fan of Desperate Housewives.

Tim has been crying wolf for years. Starting with Aaliyah’s passing, every three or four years he’ll say he’s ready to retire. Then he’ll make a gajillion dollars with Justin Timberlake and stick around.

One part of his tirade resonated with me, though: “I was done with hip-hop a long time ago. Once my generation left, I left.”

I can relate. Many of the artists I grew up with either have vanished or have lost their luster, paving the way for a crop of young’ns that wear their little sisters’ jeans, giggle through their verses, and come up with ridiculous adlibs. Brrrrrr.

It has to be hard to continue to make music when you don’t even like it anymore. Maybe that’s why Tim’s latest album, Shock Value 2, featured hardly any hip hop.

 

I guess I really am a European woman, seeing that I’m the only person on Earth who liked that album.

Oh well. I would hate to see him go, but I’d rather he vanish than stick around if his heart isn’t in it. But something tells me that he’ll hang around just a bit longer. Like me, no matter how much hip hop sucks, you can’t let it go. Tim ain’t going anywhere just yet.

Call it woman’s intuition.

Facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterestlinkedinmail

1 Comments

  1. Wow! I feel the same way. . . I think he will really get back to hip-hop!

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.


*