A few weeks ago, Blackground Records made the exciting announcement that its back catalog would finally come to streaming services. The biggest news, of course, is Aaliyah's music, but it also includes albums by Tank, JoJo, Toni Braxton, several notable soundtrack albums, and a lot of music from Aaliyah's brilliant producer Timbaland. All three Timbaland & Magoo albums are streaming for the first time today, as is the first of Timbaland's three solo albums. So I thought I'd put together a collection of my favorite tracks from all 6 of those Timbo records, and salute the boot boy and the cartoon character.
Timbaland/Timbaland & Magoo deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):
1. Deep In Your Memory
2. Peepin' My Style
3. Writtin' Rhymes f/ Troy Marshall
4. Man Undercover f/ Aaliyah
5. John Blaze f/ Aaliyah and Missy Elliott
6. To My f/ Nas and Skillz
7. Who Am I f/ Twista
8. Party People f/ Jay-Z and Twista
9. Roll Out f/ Petey Pablo and Smokey
10. Considerate Brotha f/ Ludacris
11. I Am Music f/ Aaliyah and Static Major
12. Straight Outta Virginia (Intro)
13. Can We Do It Again
14. Shenanigans f/ Bubba Sparxxx
15. Release f/ Justin Timberlake
16. One & Only f/ Fall Out Boy
17. Boardmeeting
18. Ease Off The Liquor
19. Lose Control f/ JoJo
Tracks 1, 2, 3 and 4 from Timbaland & Magoo's Welcome To Our World (1997)
Tracks 5, 6 and 7 from Timbaland's
Tim's Bio: Life From Da Bassment (1998)
Tracks 8, 9, 10 and 11 from Timbaland & Magoo's Indecent Proposal (2001)
Tracks 12, 13 and 14 from Timbaland & Magoo's Under Construction II (2003)
Tracks 15, 16 and 17 from Timbaland's Shock Value (2007)
Tracks 18 and 19 from Timbaland's Shock Value II (2009)
I loved Timbaland's sound from Aaliyah and Ginuwine's first hits with him, but I remember not really knowing that he was the common denominator in all these records until a bit after the first Timbaland & Magoo album. But Welcome To Our World is an amazing album, still a lot of my favorite stuff Timbo ever did, I remember my brother got both that album and Missy Elliott's Supa Dupa Fly when they came out within a few months of each other in 1997, and it took me a couple years to realize how unique and unprecedented their sound was, I just knew that this stuff sounded incredibly fun and funky.
Given that he wasn't a producer like Timbaland and never really had a solo career, Magoo has gone down in history as this sidekick with the Q-Tip-esque voice and weird punchlines, but he really did have a great flow and a flair for memorable phrases. The Timbaland solo albums have some jams, but Tim definitely did better work when he had Magoo as a counterpoint to bounce off, one guy with a deep voice and one with a really high one.
And of course these records have an incredible roster of collaborators, a lot of the superstars Timbo produced as well as their incredibly talented Supa Friends/Swing Mob/Beat Club extended family of Aaliyah, Missy, Ginuwine, Static Major and Playa, and Bubba Sparxxx. And I thought it was cool the way Tim and Magoo picked up on the success of the futuristic old school aesthetic of Missy's Under Construction album and made their own sequel to it, was an interesting way to continue that sound across two different acts' albums.
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on Friday, August 27, 2021 at 1:25 PM.
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