← Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Flip It and Reverse It Part 1
01:06:06
How Pharrell, Timbaland and Missy, three nerds from Virginia, added quirk to pop and gave us all a dope beat to step to.
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- [00:00]
Chris Melanfy
You're listening ad free on Amazon Music. Hey there Hit Parade listeners. What you're about to hear is Part one of this episode. Part two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month. Would you like to hear this episode all at once the day it drops? Sign up for Slate Plus. You can try it for a month for just $1 and it supports not only this show, but all of Slate's acclaimed journalism and podcast. Just go to slate.com hitparadeplus you'll get to hear every Hit Parade episode in full the day it arrives. Plus Hit Parade the Bridge, our bonus episodes with guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode topics and pop chart trivia. Once again to join, that's slate.com hitparadeplus thanks and now please enjoy part one of this hit Parade episode. Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate Magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanfy, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number One? Series on today's show 20 years ago in the summer of 2002, major label Jive Records was setting up the debut album from a very high priority new solo artist who had just emerged from a blockbuster boy band, and they needed to give this young man, Justin Timberlake, his his own bespoke adult sound. For the first single they went with a track that had the vibe of a young Michael Jackson, but the song, like I Love you was much quirkier than that, as if a lush 80s Jackson song had been deconstructed and stripped for parts. This skeletal songs masterminds were from Virginia Beach, Virginia, a pair who called themselves the Neptunes. One of the producers, Pharrell Williams, even appeared in Timberlake's video alongside a pair of rappers, the clips, who also hailed from Virginia Beach. They say, wow, it's the same. For Timberlake's second single, Jive went with a song produced by a different Virginia beach producer and songwriter, and this single too sounded spacey, avant garde and catchy as hell. Cry Me a River was the handiwork of the man born Timothy Moseley, known professionally as Timbaland. The recording was a cathedral of weird it lurched, gurgled, pinged and whirred, punctuated by synthesized orchestral bursts and a virtual choir. Nothing in Justin Timberlake's boy band past sounded like either like I Love youe or Cry Me a River. Pharrell Williams and Timbaland had fully rebooted the young pop star's career. Just why did a major label entrust their new solo superstar to these two cutting edge Virginia beach producers because by 2002, Pharrell and Tim had established them not only the locus of musical coolness but also the leading hit makers of millennial pop. They had been on a tear for the better part of a decade, refashioning R and B, Hip pop. And even glossy teen pop in their image, But there was arguably no greater ambassador for the Virginia beach sound than a woman who also grew up in the Greater Hampton Roads area, was both an artist and a producer herself, and was Timbaland's professional partner, muse and inspiration Path Breaking rapper Missy Elliott.
- [05:51]
Missy Elliott
I'm driving to the beach Top down loud sound See my peace give them pounds now look who it be it be me, me, me and Timothy.
- [06:02]
Chris Melanfy
Together, Missy and Timbaland redefined the sounds considered accessible not just in hip hop but in top 40 pop, smuggling in some of the most delightfully weird sounds ever to make the top 10. Pharrell Williams and Tim Mosley followed Missy's lead to become frontline artists themselves, with big hits scored by both Pharrell. And Timbaland, And none of this activity seemed to slow their roll. Working in parallel, Pharrell, Timbaland and Missy began spreading the percolating peculiarities of Virginia beach to hits that topped the charts over. And over. And over again. Today on Hit Parade, we will trace the careers of Southern Virginian studio nerds Pharrell Williams, Timbaland and Missy Elliott, hitmakers who, through the confidence of their productions, changed the sound of chartbound pop and kept scoring hits deep into the 2000 and tens. For 25 years now, it has seemed like Pharrell, Tim and Missy could do anything from fronting an alternative rock band. To getting a song backward vocals on the chorus to the top of the charts. And that's where your hit parade marches today, the week ending November 16, 2002, when work it by Missy Elliott featuring Timbaland reached its peak of number two on the Hot 100 a fortnight after Pharrell Williams alt rock band N.E.R.D went gold with their debut album In Search of. It was a heady time for the Virginia Beach Wizards when everything they touched turned to platinum. But how did Pharrell, Tim and Missy keep the hits coming long past that imperial peak, keep the charts weird and keep reinventing the sound of pop Generation X to Gen Z. Some congratulations are in order order for the Rock and Roll hall of fame class of 2022, which was announced while this Hit Parade episode was in the works. Among the performers Inducted this year are Pat Benatar, Duran Duran, Eminem, Lionel Richie, Carly Simon, Dolly Parton and this chart topping 80s synth pop duo Eurythmics used. I'm playing Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart's 1983 number one hit Sweet Dreams are made of this so you can listen to it with fresh ears. I know that's hard. Sweet Dreams is now considered classic pop and frankly, adult contemporary. Wallpaper paper. It's not even contemporary anymore. I'll bet the last time you heard this song was in a checkout line or maybe an oldies radio station. But when Eurythmic's breakthrough hit first emerged in 83, I must tell you, it seemed weird. Good weird. Its mastery of melody, rhythm and arrangement were hard to miss even then. But nothing on the radio sounded like this. The chilly lyrics about power and abuse, the odd way Lennox sings the word this as these. The way the synthesizers cycle around the melody and produce a lurching rhythm. The way it builds on the bridge to an electronic string solo. To say nothing of the music video, which featured Dave Stewart playing a computer keyboard as if it were a musical instrument. And Annie Lennox in drag in a men's suit with a red buzz haircut singing deadpan to the camera in a corporate conference room while cows. Yes, cows. Marched around a conference table. The weirdness, the transgressiveness. This was what made Sweet Dreams great pop. It now sounds normal to us. It wasn't normal then. This is the story of hit music in general. Stuff that at first upends our notion of what popular songs are supposed to sound like, then gets normalized. It's like when James Brown and his famous Flames changed the emphasis of a four beat measure from the fourth beat to, as James put it, the one, thus helping to invent and codify funk. This sounded off kilter in 1965 on Papa's Got a Brand New Bag. Then it just became what funk sounded like. Or what about this? Does this seem like an obvious hit? Sounds like a banger now, right? It didn't in 1978. Kraftwerk's Trans Europe Express peaked at number 67. But within just a couple of years, so much of pop music sounded like Kraftwerk, including Eurythmics or Gary Newman or the Human League. Or for that matter, first wave hip hop like Afrika Bombada's Planet Rock. Among the artists influenced by Kraft Wirk was a young Pharrell Williams. He told us so himself in 2021. Pharrell appeared at that year's Rock hall induction ceremony to induct Kraftwerk.
- [14:13]
Pharrell Williams
For many of us, we were influenced by Kraftwerk without even realizing it. When Afrika Bambaata reached into a Creative Records and found Kraftwerk, that's when millions of hip hop fans around, including myself, heard Kraftwerk's infectious beats for the very first time. I'm so lucky I got to meet the late Florian Schneider and let him know how much his music meant to all of us. We should all be thankful for Kraftwerk. It's why this recognition is so important. Welcome Kraftwerk to the Rock and Roll hall of Fame.
- [14:48]
Chris Melanfy
Like Kraftwerk or Eurythmics or James Brown, Pharrell Williams whole career is about normalizing the formerly outre. So too was his friend and peer Timothy Timbaland Mosley. Sounds that swoop, skitter, even sound cartoon like these were made into mainstream pop by Pharrell Tim and his friend Missy Elliot.
- [15:19]
Missy Elliott
When the rain hits my window, I take him.
- [15:27]
Chris Melanfy
But before these quirky geniuses, let's say it nerds, could help pioneer the so called Tidewater tick rhythm sound, they had to find a path into the music business. And those routes came through the blends of rap and R B that had already begun percolating a decade earlier. This is the R B trio Guy formed and led by New York songwriter producer Teddy Riley. That's singer Aaron hall calling out Riley by name. Teddy Jam for me. Teddy Riley's claim to fame in the mid to late 80s was pioneering the sub genre New Jack Swing. A blend of R B and rap production styles that made hip hop palatable on pop and even black radio. Subsequently, this sound took over the charts. If you were listening to hit music in the late 80s, you surely heard a Teddy Riley production. Whether it was the seminal 1987 Keith Sweat hit I Want her. Or the 1988 Bobby Brown hit My Prerogative. New Jack Swing's quintessential hit which was ghost written and co produced by Teddy Riley. By 1989, when that Bobby Brown single went to number one, Riley all but owned New Jack Swing that year. He even had one of his protege groups, Rex and Effect, co led by his brother Markel Riley, record a song called New Jack Swings. Let's put a pin in the name Rex and Effect. We'll come back to them. What makes Teddy Riley pivotal to this story is what he did in the early 90s. The native of Harlem looking to get away from the rough and tumble of New York City, where moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia, setting up a small studio in a residential neighborhood. This would prove to be a catalyst to the entire Virginia beach scene, which wasn't really a scene before Riley arrived, even though the town was filled with talent. Very young, very raw talent. This is a 1991 demo tape by SBI, a rap crew slash production team made up of Virginia beach high schoolers Pharrell Williams, his cousin Timothy Mosley, Tim's friend Melvin Barcliffe, who would later give himself the rap name Magoo, and Pharrell's Filipino American buddy Chad. Hugo. Williams and Hugo would later form the production team the Neptunes, and Tim and Melvin would later record as Timbaland and Magoo. But all that was still in their future in 1990. SBI stood for Surrounded by Idiots. Yes, these guys were total geeks long before they were famous. And the demo tape was raw, but showed promise with fairly catchy beats for a bunch of wood shopping teenagers, This demo tape found its way to new new Virginia beach resident Teddy Riley, who also reportedly caught an early version of Pharrell and Chad's side project the Neptunes at a high school talent show. Riley began letting the teenagers hang around his studio. Quote When Teddy was living here, he was the only major superstar living here. Magoo would later tell Red Bull Music Academy. Teddy was huge. He inspired us because having someone locally where you could ride by their studio was great. We didn't have anything like that before, unquote. Within a year or two of setting up shop in Virginia Beach, Riley was already making hit records from that studio. Perhaps you know this one by Here They Are Again Rex. In effect, Grump Shaker, a rap single with the pop and be swagger of New Jack swing, would turn out to be a blockbuster hit, peaking at number two on the Hot 100 in 1992, the same year as the similarly posterior centric hit Baby Got Back. The Rump Shaker video shot in Virginia beach was perhaps predictably filled with lascivious images of bikini clad women. But the more important Virginia beach connection, what makes Rump Shaker historically significant was that it served as the songwriting debut of 19 year old Pharrell Williams. Teddy Riley takes a verse on Rump Shaker, and Riley deputized Pharrell to write that verse. It's got some of the catchiest bits in the song, including some lines Pharrell borrowed from an earlier hit by the band DeBarge. Williams and his buddy Chad Hugo learned from Riley how to produce syncopated hooks and thumping beats. Quote we were all technicians in Virginia, Riley later told Red Bull Music Academy. It wasn't because of Pharrell that I signed the Neptunes and it wasn't because of Chad that I signed them, it was both of them. I knew from those two I was going to get a great production team. Unquote. The following year, Pharrell made his recording debut on another Riley affiliated production that we've played in previous episodes of Hit Parade. The remix of SWV's Right Here that mixes in the hook of Michael Jackson's Human Nature on Right Here. Human Nature. The voice you hear chanting SWV's name, that's Pharrell Williams. Pharrell's cousin Timothy, however, followed his own path. Out of high school, Tim and Pharrell amicably broke up SBI and agreed to pursue their own paths. The future Timbaland was even more of a studio rat than Pharrell. He set up a mixing board in his bedroom and worked on beats endlessly when he wasn't DJing parties as DJ Timmy Tim. In his memoir the Emperor of Sound, Timbaland admits he probably would have started producing new Jack Swing tracks like the ones Teddy Riley was doing if he could have afforded an emu sampler and an 808 drum machine. Tim's beat making might have remained a hobby if his pal Magoo hadn't introduced him to an ambitious vocalist from Portsmouth, Virginia who was singing in a girl group called Faze F A Y Z E. Her name was Missy Elliot. Missy didn't have the typical look of a pop star, timbaland writes in his memoir. She wasn't super skinny and she was a tomboy. So many people in the industry would dismiss a girl like Missy out of hand. She came into my home studio and after the polite hellos and a few compliments about my mixtapes, she asked to hear some of the beats I'd been working on. I could tell she was taking it all in. She was pulling the beauty music apart and putting it back together in her head the same way that I did. Unquote. Convinced he had found a kindred spirit, Timbaland and Missy began working together. This recording, Faze's first move, was produced by Timbaland.
- [25:44]
Missy Elliott
Kicking It Baby.
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Chris Melanfy
What also impressed Tim was Missy's unshakable confidence. She was convinced they were destined to be stars and she generously talked up Tim's beats whenever she promoted Faze's recordings that finally bore fruit when another superstar act passed through town. Vocal troupe Jodeci were the self styled bad boys of R B, the opposite of more clean cut groups like Boys II Men signed to Sean Puff Daddy Combs, Uptown Records. Joe Deci carried themselves like rappers, but scored hits with sweet soul ballads like their cover of Stevie Wonders. Lately. Jodeci's main songwriter, Donald DeGreat, aka Devonte Swing, was forming his own production house called Debasement, and after passing through Virginia beach and hearing Faze sing following a Jodeci concert, Devontae Swing not only signed Missy Elliott's girl group but at Missy's insistence, also signed up their beat maker, Tim Mosley. Devonte Swing transported the lot of them from Virginia beach to an apartment apartment near his studio in Teaneck, New Jersey. And he gave them all new names. Phase he renamed Sista, and he gave Tim the nickname Timbaland, after the hiking shoe that had taken off in the hood in the early 90s. Quote Nobody outside of Virginia beach knew DJ Timmy Tim, Timbaland writes in his memoir. But everybody knew Timberlands, so the nickname stuck. Timbaland made his debut as a guest rapper on Jodeci's late 1993 track. In the meanwhile, on that same Jodeci album, Diary of a Mad Band, Missy got a guest spot too on Won't Waste you. But these tracks were deep cuts, not hits, and while they were working on Jodeci's material, the focus shifted away from Missy's group. Sista Devante would forget about Tim and Missy for months at a time while Jodeci toured and his proteges toiled away in Debasement. Eventually, Sista did get signed to Elektra Records in 1994 and scored a minor hit with Brand New, a hip hop soul jam in the mold of Mary J. Blige, co produced by Devontae Swing and Timbaland and sung by Missy Elliott. Brand New reached a modest number 84 on the R B chart in the late summer of 1994. Given that poor performance, Elektra shelved the Sista album, and Tim and Missy continued to find themselves unheralded, underpaid and often ignored by Devante. Still, for the nearly three years of their apprenticeship in the Jodeci stars Teen X Circle, Tim and Missy amassed hours of studio time and began to develop signature sonic styles that would never make it on Jodeci Records. In his memoir, Timbaland writes, quote I'll always give credit to Devonte for what I learned. The problem was that we were not consistently compensated, unquote. It was wasn't until 1996 that things finally began to turn around for Missy Elliott and Timbaland. First she, then he finally broke away from Devante's Swing. Each was talking up the other to their acquaintances in the business, helping to get each other gigs. As she shifted from singing to rapping, Elliot was developing a unique vocal style. In a memorable guest appearance on a remix of a 1996 Gina Thompson single called the Things that yout Do, Missy came up with a delightfully weird lyric that, in the great rock and roll tradition of such rhythmic gibberish as a whop bob a loo bob a whomp bamboo wasn't even really eng. For Timbaland. The breakthrough came via an equally quirky production he devised for an R and B singer he met during his years with Devontae Swing, a man from Washington, D.C. born Elgin Baylor Lumpkin, who went by the name Ginuwon. While they were all still toiling in Debasement, working alongside the producer Static Major Tim produced a weird, lurching, belching club jam for Genuine. Everyone in Debasement who heard the beat considered it one of the catchiest things they'd ever heard, but it didn't sound like a Jodeci record. Devontae Swing had no interest in it, so Tim took it with him when he left Devonte's employ. And when Genuine got signed to epic Records in 1996, that Timbaland Static Major track would be Genuine's first single, a cheeky metaphor for sexual they called Pony. Though he first devised it in a studio in New Jersey, Pony is arguably ground zero for the quirky Virginia beach sound. Before the Neptunes or Missy Elliott scored their own strings of hits, Timbaland's Pony production showed how a track could be off kilter. Highly syncopated and unusually catchy, Pony soared up the charts, reaching number six on the Hot 100 and spending two weeks at number one on the R B chart. As pivotal as Ginuwine's hit was for Timbaland, a new acquaintance had an even greater impact on the arc of both his career and Missy's. By the time Aaliyah met Timbaland and Missy Elliott in 1996, she had already generated a platinum album at the age of 15. She'd also been briefly, secretly married, illegally and underage to that first album's mastermind, R. Kelly. Having cut ties with Kelly and her first album's label, Aaliyah was looking for a completely new sound. Quote I really like what you two have been working on, she told Tim and Missy in a Detroit studio. I really want that edgy, off center style for my next album. I don't want to to play it safe. Unquote. Tim and Missy liked Aaliyah right away. She felt instantly like family to them, and so they felt confident enough to play her a demo of a song produced by Timbaland with lyrics by Missy, if your girl only knew.
- [35:03]
Missy Elliott
You.
- [35:08]
Chris Melanfy
The rumbling, loping beat, the lyrics that revealed a woman's innermost thoughts. Aaliyah loved it instantly. Tim and Missy wound up staying in Detroit to write and produce roughly half of Aaliyah's second album. If your Girl Only Knew was chosen as the album's first single, a number one R B number 11 pop hit in the fall of 1996, and a second hit by Tim and Missy gave the Aaliyah album its title, One in a million.
- [35:54]
Missy Elliott
You.
- [35:59]
Chris Melanfy
The One in a million album went double platinum and established Timbaland and Missy Elliott as in demand hit makers. Missy herself had a high enough profile now that she was invited not only to contribute to the debut album by R and B Trio 702, she even provided a featured rap on their number 12 R B number 32 pop hit Steel. But the coup de grace was when Electra, the label that had signed Sista back in 1994 before shelving their debut, now signed Missy going by the nom de rapper Missy Misdemeanor Elliott as a solo recording artist. Her 1997 debut album would be produced solely by her production partner Timbaland, and together they would make an album, allmusics Steve Huey would later call quote, a boundary shattering postmodern masterpiece.
- [37:14]
Missy Elliott
So I'll call you back.
- [37:24]
Chris Melanfy
Missy. Misdemeanor Elliott's debut album was packed with unpredictable arrangements and stuttering break beats. It shifted the center of both hip hop and pop. Missy both sang and rapped on the album, often shifting back and forth within the same song. The album's centerpiece was a deconstruction of Memphis soul singer Ann Peebles 1973 hit I Can't Stand the Rain, Which Missy and Timbaland turn, turned into the percolating fantasia the Rain Supa Dupa Fly. That parenthetical phrase gave the album its title, The Rain Super Duper Fly was only a modest hit, issued only as a radio track, not a retail single. It couldn't chart on the Hot 100 and appeared only on the R B chart as a B side. But its influence was profound. What made the song iconic was its music video, in which Missy danced in an inflatable patent leather suit resembling a billowy trash bag. Its size inflated visually even further by video auteur Hype Williams's fisheye lens. Rather than attempt to fit the mold of a svelte R B diva, Missy made herself extra large, deliberately freaky and visually arresting. The Rain Super Duper Fly routinely makes lists of the greatest videos of all time. A recent countdown by Rolling Stone magazine ranked it 16th between videos by Duran Duran and the White Stripes, and it propelled the album and Elliott to instant success. Released in July 1997, the Super Duper Fly album debuted at number three on the album chart and quickly went platinum. The CD generated four hits on the R B and pop charts, including the Debrat featuring Socket to Me. And Hit him with the he, which built on the nonsense lyrics Missy had coined on the Gina Thompson remix just one year earlier. At the end of 1997, Missy Misdemeanor Elliott's Supa Dupafly album was ranked one of the 10 best of the year by scores of critics, making 6 6th place on that year's Village Voice Paz and Jop poll. Missy and her producer Timbaland hadn't just scored a hit, they had rebooted hip hop in their oddball image. Accordingly, their career opportunities exploded. Missy, for her part, took production and guest vocal duties on tracks by everyone from solo Spice Girl Melanie B. I.
- [41:09]
Missy Elliott
Think I want you back, your love has made a deep impact.
- [41:21]
Chris Melanfy
To r b queen whitney houston. As for Timbaland, he was now free to release an album. As a frontline artist himself, Tim partnered with his old Virginia beach buddy Magoo. Their joint album welcome to Our World went platinum and gave Timbaland and Magoo their own hit with the number 12 pop number one rap single up Jumps Debogie, featuring vocals from both Missy Elliott and Aaliyah. After a decade of beat making, Tim was still finding hot sounds in unlikely places for his and Magoo's second single. He took no kidding, the theme to the 80s NBC TV hit Knight Rider. And turned it into the basis for their 1998 hit clock strikes. That beach went so viral, rapper Busta Rhymes copped it for a remix of his song Turn It Up, Fire it up, which also rode a Knight Rider sample into the top 10. But Timbaland had an even cooler beat in his back pocket pocket for 1998, and the beneficiary would be Aaliyah, Crammed into a single night of recording to make a deadline for the soundtrack to the Eddie Murphy film Dr. Dolittle are you that somebody went on to become Aaliyah's most acclaimed single and the ultimate showcase for Timbaland's beat making genius, built out of stuttering guitar licks, beatboxing, a halting rap from Tim himself, and even a sample of a baby Cooing that Tim wove into the rhythm in homage to baby girl Aaliyah. The track sounded futuristic, almost impossible to sing over, but Aaliyah's fluttery start stop vocals floated above the beat and tied together Are you that somebody? Reaching number four on Hot 100 airplay at the peak of the great war against the single and number one for eight weeks on the R B airplay chart, Are youe that Somebody became Aaliyah's most enduring hit. Riding the charts for nearly eight months and still among her most played tracks today, it affirmed Timbaland as the bleeding edge producer of his day. Meanwhile, Tim's cousin Pharrell Williams and his partner Chad Hugo were taking a more circuitous route to production supremacy. Though the duo, who called themselves the Neptunes, broke earlier than Tim thanks to their mentorship under Teddy riley, by the mid-90s, Pharrell and Chad found themselves occasional guns for hire backbenchers still feeling out the contours of their sound. In 1996, while Timbaland was producing Ginuwine and Aaliyah, the Neptunes were writing and producing a track for Sean Combs girl group Protege's Total. And though the beat on Total's When Boy Meets Girl was built out of a Bee Gees sample, the dry, brittle drums and stripped down production hinted at the Neptune's future direction. In 1997, the Neptune Sound evolved a little further on another track in the Sean Puff Daddy combs universe. Rapper Mace's track Lookin @ Me, its minor key, piano and synth lines became another Neptune's sonic signature. Chosen as the final single from Mace's multi platinum Harlem World album, Looking At Me peaked at number eight on both the pop and R B charts in the summer of 1998, giving Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo their First official top 10 hit as frontline producers. But it was another hit later in 98 by rapper Noriega that finally established the Neptune sound once and for all. Super Thug was built out of a melody line from a Korg synthesizer programmed to emulate the medieval instrument the Clavichord. That nagging, proudly synthetic sound, totally unnatural and in your face, cut through the radio like glass. Though Super Thug only reached number 15 on the R B chart and number 36 on the Hot 100, it was deeply influential. Suddenly, a range of artists wanted a piece of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo and their uncluttered, dry, brittle production sound, including Wu Tang Clan rapper Ol Dirty Bastard, for whom the duo produced the top 10 hit Got yout.
- [48:25]
Timbaland
Money. Now that you heard my Charming.
- [48:31]
Chris Melanfy
Voice you couldn't get another nigga Coochie.
- [48:33]
Timbaland
Won'T get moist if you want to.
- [48:35]
Chris Melanfy
Look good and not be bummy yo, you better give me that money. And New Orleans rapper Mystical, whose career was massively boosted by the Neptune's immortal production on his top 20 hit Shake Ya ass, watch yourself Shake your ass. Like Timbaland, who found his equal, muse and ultimate frontwoman in Missy Elliott. Around this time, Pharrell and Chad teamed with a female discovery of their own, a young New Yorker just out of high school named Kelis Rogers, who recorded simply as Khalees. And out of the box, Khalees projected.
- [49:27]
Missy Elliott
Fierceness. This song is for all the women out there that have been lied to by their men. And I know y' all been lying.
- [49:36]
Chris Melanfy
To. Caught out There was a diatribe against cheating men, an unconventional R and B track with the swagger of a hip hop beef record and the crunch of alternative rock. Pharrell and Chad wrote it. It as a showcase for Khalees, who possesses a sweet singing voice but quite literally shouts the chorus. A top 10 R B hit in 1999 and a top 10 pop hit in in half a dozen countries worldwide. Caught Out There was artistically a major win for both Khalees and the Neptunes, announcing her as a new talent and affirming their status as top tier producers. It was also deeply admired by their old friend Tim. Coincidentally, when the Neptunes were recording with Khalees in Master Sound studios in. In Virginia Beach, Timbaland and Missy Elliott were working next door. They all remained admirers of each other's work. And in this priceless interview segment recorded two decades later, at which Pharrell and Timbaland shared a stage, Tim recalled hearing the track for the first.
- [51:12]
Timbaland
Time. And me and Missy was working in the. I guess I would call it studio A. And then they had a studio B. Yep. And I walked to the back door. Missy was in there doing something.
- [51:22]
Chris Melanfy
And I heard, I hate you so much right.
- [51:25]
Timbaland
Now. I said, missy, you gotta hear this. And I was like, oh, man, I wish I had made that beat. That was the beat. And I didn't make it, but Pharrell made it. I was like, oh, this is crazy. I just kept listening to the door. She's like, come on, come on, we gotta finish our sprecket. I said, I. I'm done for.
- [51:42]
Chris Melanfy
Tonight. Pharrell and Chad, Tim and Missy. By the turn of the millennium, each team had found a path to music biz supremacy with their own unique takes on the syncopated, spacious Virginia beach sound. In some cases, they even worked with the same artists, showcasing their respective styles. Take Jay Z, for example. In 1999, Timbaland produced Jay's acclaimed single with Texas rap duo UGK Big Pimpin, and it was a paragon of Tim's clever way with an unconventional sample. Its memorable flute sample was taken from Egyptian artist Hossam Ramsey's track Cosada. Cosada. Big Pimpin reached number 18 on the Hot 100 and number 6 on the R B chart in the summer of 2000. Less than six months later, Jay Z was back on both charts with the Neptunes. Produced I Just Wanna Love youe Parentheses Give it to Me. This track showcased not only the duo's clavichord synth lines but also the falsetto voice of Pharrell Williams, who sang the chorus. Jay loved that chorus so much he lip synced it in the song'. I Just Wanna Love youe was an even bigger hit for Jay z, reaching number 11 pop number one R&B. It would not be the last time Pharrell's falsetto was heard on a chart topping hit. As for Missy Elliott, she was now both a superstar and a mogul. She launched her own label, the Goldmind, distributed by Elektra Records, and it produced a hit quickly with Make It Hot, a number five pop number two R B hit by singer Nicole Ray. She went by the mononym Nicole and like Missy, hailed from Portsmouth, Virginia. What you want? Elliot commanded the producer's chair for most of Nicole's album. The Missy Elliott sound, such as it was, was rooted more in lyrics and attitude, women expressing sexual agency, sassy and joie de vivre. You could hear it on a song she co wrote and produced for 702, the girl group trio who had helped break Missy in 1996. They took the Elliott penned Where My Girls at to number four pop number three R B in the summer of 1990, And Missy doubled down on not only the sass but the sexual freakiness on her own single Hot Boys, a top five pop number one R B smash later that same.
- [55:28]
Missy Elliott
Year. Say.
- [55:31]
Chris Melanfy
What? Hot Boys was the biggest single from the real world, Missy's own second album, which came packed with hits, guests and attitude. For example, the lead single She's a Bitch, which used the titular expletive as both a term of scorn and admiration. Often the bitch was Missy.
- [56:01]
Missy Elliott
Herself. Tips She's a when you say my name but won't look my way She's a see I got more.
- [56:08]
Chris Melanfy
Chili. So back on up, Elliot's bond with Timbaland was as strong as ever. He produced all of the real world's hits, and within a year they were back at work on a third Missy Elliot album, which would come out in 2001 under the title Miss E. So Addictive, and its lead single might well have been the most advanced progressive track the pair had produced yet. On Jay Z's Big Pimpin, Timbaland had experimented with sampling Egyptian music, but on Missy Elliott's get your Freak On, Tim made Big Pimpin seem almost conventional. Has a hit single ever had a more descriptive title? Get yout Freak on delivered exactly what it promised a freaky, instantly infectious amalgam of globe trotting sounds, Japanese phrases, tip tapping, bhangra beats, a sample of a German record that itself sampled Punjabi singer Master Dilbahar. Even an instant where Missy audibly spits. It should have been too weird for the radio. But by 2001, Missy, Timbaland and by extension the Neptunes had retrained pop fans ears to embrace the weird. Getyour Freak on reach number seven on the Hot 100 in June of 01, Elliot's second ever top 10 hit after Hot Boys, and it won universal critical acclaim. Even more than the rain, Supadupafly had Get Your Freakon ranked first among all singles singles in the 2001 Pazenjop Critics Poll. In 2021, in an update to its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time poll, Rolling Stone ranked get yout freakon 8th overall, right above singles by the Beach Boys and Fleetwood Mac. Even after 20 years, the magazine said, it still sounds like the future. Now a consistent hit maker, Missy Elliott came right back to the top 40 just a month later. And speaking of freakiness, One Minute man was a shameless ode to female sexual gratification. It reached number 15. Around the same time Aaliyah was releasing a new album as well. In the years since her and Timbaland's 1998 triumph with are you that Somebody? The artist Tim affectionately called Baby Girl had become a cross media megastar, not only continuing to score hits but also breaking onto the silver screen. In 2000, Aaliyah made her movie debut alongside martial artist Jet Li in the action romance Romeo Must Die. From the soundtrack to that film, Aaliyah scored her first ever Hot 100 number one with try again, on which producer Timbaland rapped about giving her a dope beat to step to. By 2001, after a busy five years, Aaliyah was finally preparing her third album, which would be self titled and would feature several collaborations with Timbaland. The album's lead single, We Need a Resolution, continued the globe trotting theme of Tim's recent work with Jay Z and Missy Elliott sampling a duduque from a film score to give the track a Middle Eastern vibe. Aaliyah's album dropped in July 2001 and debuted all the way up at number two on the Billboard 200, her highest album chart position to date. The CD was packed with Timbaland tracks like More Than a Woman, a planned future single for which Aaliyah shot a music video in Los Angeles in August 2001. After shooting that video in LA A, Leah boarded a plane to the Bahamas to shoot another clip for a different track called Rock the Boat, and it was on that trip coming back from the shoot that tragedy struck. On August 25, 2001, Aaliyah and her entourage packed onto a Cessna twin engine plane that became overloaded and crashed shortly after takeoff. The pilot and all eight passengers were killed. Aaliyah was just 22 years old. The mourning for Aaliyah across the music industry and among fans was profound. The self titled Aaliyah album rose to number one on the Billboard 200 just after the tragedy and by the way, just days before the horrific tragedy of 9 11. With no prompting from the record label, radio stations and grieving fans honed in on a track in the middle of the album called I Care for your, which had been written for Aaliyah by Missy Elliott and produced by Timbaland. The two creators who'd gotten their biggest break in 1996 thanks to the teenager they called Baby Girl. Tim and Missy were profoundly affected by the loss of a lead and it cast a pall over their work for years. Mourning the loss would test their friendship and dig an emotional hole that would take years to climb out of, even as they continue to score some of their biggest hits and enjoy some of their greatest chart.
- [63:58]
Missy Elliott
Triumph. You know I wanna let you know I.
- [64:09]
Chris Melanfy
Care when we come back. Timbaland and Missy Elliott score their biggest hit together, then enter a strange wilderness period while their friend Pharrell Williams picks up the torch and proceeds to redefine the sound of the.
- [64:28]
Pharrell Williams
Radio. Looking at you.
- [64:35]
Chris Melanfy
Sexy. Non Slate plus listeners will hear the rest of this episode in two weeks. For now, I hope you've been enjoying this episode of Hit Parade. Our show was written, edited and narrated by Chris Melanfy. That's me. My producer is Kevin Bendis. Alicia Montgomery is the executive producer and Derek John, the supervising narrative producer of Slate Podcasts. Check out their roster of shows@slate.com podcasts. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture feed. If you're subscribed subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening, and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. We'll see you for part two in a couple of weeks. Until then, keep on marching on the one I'm Chris Melanie. Look at me.
- [65:47]
Missy Elliott
Girl. I love.
- [65:48]
Chris Melanfy
It. Then you kick your other girl to show. Tell her you gonna call her ass how it was and she's gonna love.