Legendary producer Timbaland recently stopped by the Drink Champs podcast for an interview.
The Grammy award-winner has worked with superstars like Beyonce, Jay Z, and Justin Timberlake, among others. During the interview, Timbaland talked about getting his start as a DJ, the collaborations that defined his career, and more.
On how he got his start in music:
“I was beatboxing… [but] my main passion back then was DJing. And how I got into making beats is… let me try to make a beat so I can blend my records too… so I just took what I had, and I was passionate about sounds. I love noises.”
On first finding success in the industry:
“We weren’t thinking like, you know, ‘this is a hit,’ we’re thinking ‘we’re getting recognized… our passion is getting looked at, it’s not taken for granted…’ because we put in a lot of work, and our work was accepted.”
On working with Dr. Dre, and his influence on hip-hop’s sound:
“Dr. Dre. was the God of rap… he made rap sound clean, he made it sound so clean… I wanted to know like ‘yo how do you mix that drum, how do you get them drums to sound like [that]?’”
Watch the interview above.
Related: Watch: Marley Marl Talks Producing Electronic Music, Current State of Hip-Hop