Snug inside his production bunker, changing the face of popular music is all in a day's work for Tim 'Timbaland' Mosley. Here is a producer who's spun hip-hop and R&B into odd and fabulous new shapes, who's made stuttering electronic experiments into massive commercial currency, who bends the mainstream to his own will. But can he cut it out of the control room and in front of the mic? Is Timbaland a real superstar or just a genius technician?
That's the question posed - and not entirely satisfactorily answered - by 'Indecent Proposal'. His third headlining album (the second with rapping partner Magoo), 'Indecent Proposal' has had a troubled gestation, dropping in and out of the schedules and released some months ago in the States. The trouble with being quite this brilliant, of course, is that your ideas sometimes move faster than release schedules. Hence, Tim's already superseded some of the global-tinged, tabla-spattered electro trickery here, on his great recent work for Bubba Sparxxx, Petey Pablo and the upcoming Tweet debut.
That said, even his older tunes are still streets ahead of the competition sonically. And the company he keeps is exceptional, with Jay-Z on the 'Blueprint'-quality 'Party People', Ludacris on 'Considerate Brother', protéé Petey Pablo on the shouty Dirty South banger 'Serious', and one last appearance from Aaliyah on the wonky slow-jam 'I Am Music'.
The problem comes with his own rapping. Magoo's a decent enough Q-Tip clone, but whilst Tim sounds fine performing swift "fricky-fricky-fricky" cameos for Missy et al, the most that can be said for his flow is that he's no worse a rapper than Dr Dre. At least he can take solace in being incontestably the world's best producer - but is that enough for him? Current rumours suggest he's now given up rapping. Hip-hop won't miss him - on that count, anyway.
