During a newly-released interview with Vulture, Timbaland spoke on his new memoir, “The Emperor Of Sound.” At one point in the conversation, the Virginia beatsmith was asked about a particular section in his book where he speaks on wanting to avoid Suge Knight during the Death Row era.
According to Timbaland, Knight was “a great man,” but may have been the victim of his own power.
“I think we all went through the same thing,” Timbaland said. “None of us avoided anything, it was just trials and tribulation. Suge was young. Everybody was young. Suge was probably one of the biggest visionaries there was. But sometimes visionary and power can be too much. Sometimes you can’t handle both. Suge is a great man. But having all that power and losing it can eventually mess you up.”
Later in the interview, Timbaland revealed his plans to release a free mixtape in the future.
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“Okay, I’m gonna rule the mixtape era,” the producer said. “I’m gonna rule it. I’mma put out a mixtape. Why not? Let’s do it. It’s gonna be ill, too…Look, y’all done paid for my music all these years, why not give something back? It’s about being apart of the culture and showing people how to make it. If we gonna do trap music, this is how we gonna do it. I’m gonna control this thing. Y’all come to me, I got it. The dirtiness? Mmm, mmm. We gotta clean this up.”
The musician later offered praise to Drake, J. Cole, and Kendrick Lamar for being familiar with internet culture as artists.
“He is really tapped into everything in the culture,” he said while speaking on Drake. “Him, J. Cole, and Kendrick [Lamar]. ‘Cause they are that [points to computer], the internet. They know that shit up and down. Drake got playlists. An old-school cat would be like, ‘A playlist? We ain’t doing that!’ We got to. We gotta be the ones to invent the next wheel. But sometimes we get complacent. Drake is on everything. All that stuff I thought about five, six years ago. But what happened is life. Now I’m getting back to it, like, ‘Okay, you jumped the boat, but I started this. You are my baby. So now I gotta come and play with you, brother. Let me show you how I really played back in the ’90s.’”
