The 25 Greatest Timbaland Songs Of All Time

In anticipation of the 2010 VH1 Hip Hop Honors: The Dirty South, which airs on June 7, Complex and Miss Info have teamed with the network to celebrate this year's honorees with exclusive coverage.




Timbaland saw the future. That had to be what it was, because arguably no other producer had a more profound effect on the direction of popular music than the Virginia Beach-bred producer. He exploded the aesthetic template to include collapsing polyrhythms, hiccuping babies, and stop-and-go world music samples. He was Jay-Z's most consistent collaborator, and knocked out a string of hits and classics with his muse, Aaliyah. When she died, he folded that creativity into the world of pop music, knocking out major hits for the likes of Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake. In preparation for the VH1 Hip Hop Honors, Complex looks back on 25 of Timbo's best beats...

Released: 2006
By the middle of the ’00s, it seemed like Timbaland had all but put hip-hop behind him. His rap collaborations were infrequent and usually leaned towards the pop side of the spectrum. "3 AM" served as a reminder that he could still get down on the grimy side of things, playing in frequent Jeezy producer Shawty Redd's sandbox and blending his trademark twitchy programming with Atlanta's then-standard of darkened d-boy drama synths.

Released: 1999
For the most part, when Timbaland used samples they accounted for just a small element in a larger blueprint but Missy's "Hot Boyz" is entirely sample-driven, hinging on the stop-and-go chops of an unidentifiable string sample. Eve and Nas tear this down with ease, while Q-Tip just confuses with an surrealistically uncharacteristic verse about how much heat he holds and how he intends to "hit it ’til it's numbness."