Timbaland is one of the most legendary hip-hop and pop producers around, and in a recent interview he revealed how much he could fetch for just one beat.
Speaking on The Producer Grind podcast, as heard above at the 51:00 point of the interview, Timbaland said that at one point in time he could fetch as much as $500k for his production. "I actually get like, 300—$500k, back in the day,” he said. Asked why producers don't fetch as much these days, he added, "Because y'all don't put no value on yourself. ... We ain’t come from a world where you send beats; we come from when that bitch was tailor-made, you understand?"
Timbaland first got his start in the early ‘90s, but by the middle of the decade he was producing for some of the biggest artists in the world. He worked extensively with Ginuwine, Aaliyah, and Missy Elliott, with credits across both R&B and hip-hop. His success didn’t stop there, however, as he continued to work on hits with Jay-Z, Nas, Justin Timberlake, Drake, Madonna, Rihanna, and even Björk in the 2000s.
"The producer was respected way more," he noted. "You needed a dope producer as an artist. You needed that, and now you got YouTube. People putting beats, it’s just not the same. It’s just like Wild Wild West out there. So back then, there was a lot of value to the producer. ... You can still have some kind of value [now], you just gotta limit what you do, what you send out. ... Back then it was different times. I could say for the producer game, it was way better.”
Earlier in the interview, at the 34-minute point, Timbaland also talked about the use of A.I. technology in production going forward. “I knew this guy, one of my homeboys, he was working on this whole program that while the computer’s asleep it’s generating sounds,” he said. “And when he opens up it take white noise and make kicks the dopest snares while he sleeps. He been working on this for years, and I’m sure he mastered it now. The computer makes his kits, he don’t get drum kits from people. Make samples while he sleeps.”
Watch the full interview above.
