![]() His recent bodybuilding obsession, his divisive, grandstanding mini-sets during the Justin Timberlake tour, and his forehead-smack of a beef with Scott Storch (?)(!) have made for great blog-snark gossip fodder, but they don't necessarily signal any kind of creative decline, especially after the juggernaut year he had in '06. When Tim's shit goes wrong, though, it's harder to get to the root of the problem. The other main factor in his genius, as anyone who's had a radio on at any point in the last decade knows, is his ability to integrate unexpected niche-genre sonics most hip hop and R&B producers wouldn't steer towards- bhangra, jungle, trance- and use them for a kind of universal club futurism that, since it fits well in damn near every place people dance, makes for an easy route to chart and cultural dominance. ![]() This might be one of the reasons he's considered by most trainspotter pop fiends to be more of a genius than those other two even when Tim runs his mouth, it's typically been innocuously catchy- even complementary- enough to keep the production's strengths at the forefront. He hasn't spent more time being a pop icon than a musician, hasn't suffered from any major dry spells of creative entropy and, most importantly, has known enough to let his beats do most of the heavy lifting. When it comes down to the big three producer-MCs who have defined club-friendly rap over the past decade- Diddy, Pharrell and Timbaland- Tim's the one who's been best able to rein in his self-indulgent tendencies.
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