Timbaland has constructed a complete legacy on one intuition: if everybody expects you to do the apparent, do the alternative and make it plain.
In spite of everything, he’s the producer who taught popular culture to listen to rhythm in sudden issues like crickets, birds, and sure, even a child crying. (If you understand, you understand.)
Babybel, the long-lasting purple wax-wrapped cheese model, is a French model impressed by Dutch Edam, which was began with Jules Bel’s cheese commerce within the 1860s. By 1977, the tiny poppers had revolutionized handy snacking and develop into a worldwide hit.
Timbaland boasts 4 Grammy Awards for megahits like “SexyBack,” “LoveStoned,” and “Drunk in Love”, plus greater than 20 extra nominations and a bunch of different accolades to his identify.
When two giants of their respective industries come collectively, certainly they’ll take one thing small and make it huge.
When Babybel got here calling with an concept that might’ve simply been written off as novelty, Timbaland didn’t deal with it like a unusual model stunt. He handled it like a gap to highlight what we’re shedding within the all-digital period, and what we have to convey again.
“Now we have to offer tangible issues once more earlier than it will get misplaced within the sauce,” Timbaland informed TheGrio in an unique interview. “Don’t get me improper — I’m a tech geek. However I additionally perceive what I come from, and that’s {hardware}.”
That pressure between the longer term and what we’re shedding alongside the way in which is strictly what makes Timbaland’s newest transfer really feel like greater than a industrial remix.
“I at all times love to do one thing out of the norm, and I simply thought, just like the phrase ‘wax’ stood out to me,” he stated. “Once they saved emphasizing the phrase wax, I used to be like, ‘Effectively, how had been data first made?’ On wax.”
This collaboration, referred to as Mini Wax Tracks, reimagines the model’s longstanding jingle “I’m Your Child” in two unique variations and places them onto collectible mini vinyl data.
That’s the form of left-field connection solely Timbaland might make sound inevitable: snack tradition meets vinyl tradition.
And it didn’t harm that the product itself already match into his day-to-day.
“Effectively, for one, I like cheese for the protein features of it,” he stated. “I combine it with my salads and all the things. Babybel was one among my favorites again within the day, too.”
Once I requested what felt creatively aligned concerning the collaboration, he stated the unique jingle made him really feel one thing.
“Once I heard the unique… ‘it’s catchy,’” he informed me. “And I considered commercials at the moment. To me, we don’t actually have these catchy commercials. The final time we had a catchy jingle was once I was a child.” The 2024 Songwriter Corridor of Fame inductee went on to sing the “Faculty Home Rock” tune: “‘Conjunction junction, what’s your perform.’” He added, “‘I’m your Babybel’ form of appeared like “Conjunction Junction,” so I used to be like, let me put my contact on this.”
That contact turned a restricted‑version drop that includes two remixes, one pop and one EDM, pressed onto 3‑inch vinyl. The chew‑sized nature of Babybel makes it the proper snack, identical to the remixed tracks by Timbaland. However the deeper story is about tangibility in a digital period.
He talked about wanting to leap out of the field, and this remix ensures his legacy will “be part of historical past going ahead.”
Even after 200 ASCAP songwriter awards, he’s nonetheless taken with making moments folks bear in mind, particularly those nobody expects from him.
That’s additionally why the “jingle” lane doesn’t really feel small to him. Once I talked about how Luther Vandross obtained his begin by writing a jingle for a New York pizzeria, Timbaland handled it like proof.
“Once I began doing my historical past of what number of culturally [relevant] artists have accomplished nice jingles, he was one among them,” he stated.
Timbaland didn’t body the mini vinyl drop as a cute collectible for collectors. He framed it like a reminder.
“To me, it’s at all times understanding the historical past of how all the things as soon as was,” he stated. “Vinyl was the largest factor in my profession. That’s how I began off, as a DJ, spinning vinyl.”
He even made the “mini” half really feel like a historical past lesson, connecting it to the 45s loads of youthful music followers have by no means touched.
“Mini vinyl, to me, means 45,” he stated. “That was the small vinyl with the massive gap within the center, I informed my son, and he was like, ‘Oh snap, that is so cool,’ as a result of they don’t know these items.”
For Timbaland, the purpose isn’t to show again the clock. It’s to cease appearing just like the clock ever existed.
“As we get ahead into know-how, we at all times have to return to the essence,” he stated. “I’LL always remember the place I come from in relation to {hardware} and stuff that was tangible.”
For those who’ve been following Timbaland’s latest strikes, you already know his identify sits in the course of the music trade’s AI debate. In our dialog, he referred to as it a software.
“Right here’s the factor about it,” he informed me. “It nonetheless takes you as a human to regulate it. I believe that’s the misunderstanding, that you just simply immediate it.”
Then he defined what makes it priceless to him: AI doesn’t substitute his data—it provides him a quicker manner to make use of it.
“All of the data that I do know of music and all the things of tech, I can speak to it, and it can provide me again what I do know,” he stated.
He described utilizing it in producer phrases. One thing that helps translate the sound he hears in his head right into a tough model he can construct from.
“I have a look at it as a pattern software,” he defined, describing how he would possibly sing a melody and ask the software to flip it into a selected musical texture: “Hey, can you modify this right into a guitar with oriental string sound?”
To Timbaland, AI is the start of the method, not the tip.
“Now I can direct my very own choir after which go get the actual choir to essentially sing it,” he stated. “It’s like a demo. I have a look at AI as like a pitch demo to do different issues with nice people.”
However he additionally drew a transparent line round priorities.
“I’m by no means going to neglect the human parts and put the machine first. I believe we are able to mix as one.”
In Timbaland’s thoughts, the know-how doesn’t outline the artwork. The artist nonetheless does.
And when the dialog turned to pushback from musicians, he supplied one among his most provocative takes:
“I believe AI exposes mediocrity,” he stated.
He acknowledged the worry and the potential for hurt, however framed it like one other competitor in an extended line of trade disruptors, one thing artists must outgrow, outcreate, and outwork.
Even with all that enthusiasm about what AI can unlock, Timbaland paused lengthy sufficient to make one factor clear about this particular mission.
“Okay, let me simply say this,” he stated. “For this industrial, no AI was used. It was all about natural and unique.”
That distinction isn’t a contradiction. It’s the purpose.
Timbaland isn’t selecting a facet between previous and future; he’s insisting each nonetheless matter.
Followers can preview the remixes and enter for an opportunity to win a limited-edition mini vinyl set (together with an identical mini turntable) from Jan. 21 by way of Feb. 6, at miniwaxtracks.com.
The complete remixes can be found on main streaming platforms beginning at the moment, Jan. 23, at 12:00 a.m. ET, together with Spotify, Apple, and Amazon Music, plus social libraries like Meta and TikTok.
It’s straightforward to name this “Timbaland remixed a cheese jingle,” however what he’s actually saying is that music can’t be all cloud and comfort. Creativity can’t be all shortcuts. And innovation doesn’t imply we cease honoring the essence of how we obtained right here.
For Timbaland, Mini Wax Tracks isn’t a detour from his legacy. It’s proof that he’s nonetheless constructing it, in actual time, and he’s doing it the identical manner he at all times has, by discovering tradition within the unusual locations and leaving his mark on it.
