Timbaland Names Jay-Z, Nas And Eminem In His Hip Hop Mt. Rushmore

Veteran hip hop producer Timbaland recently sat down with the I Am Athlete Podcast for a special ‘I Am Hip-Hop’ series to commemorate the 50th anniversary of hip hop.

At around the 12:30 mark in the video below, the renowned record producer was asked to list his top ten hip hop artists of all time. Timbo noted his criterion was based on what changed his life, before name dropping the likes of Slick Rick, Doug E. Fresh, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Run DMC and LL Cool J.

When the host realized the Grammy winning producer’s list was deeper than ten, he threw out some names he believed the vet failed to mention: ‘You ain’t even go Jay-Z, you ain’t go Biggie you ain’t go 2Pac. You got even Kendrick Lamar,’ Brandon Marshall said.

‘Jay-Z is number one for me. Biggie and Jay and Nas are the three musketeers. And 2Pac,’ Timbaland said in response.

‘I would say if we had to draw out the Mount Rushmore, I would have to put five because I would have to put Jay-Z, Biggie, 2Pac, Nas… damn, you gotta put six. Snoop Dogg let’s not forget Eminem.

The host brought up the recent conversations about Eminem’s place in hop hop, saying; “A lot of people disrespect Eminem.’ Timbaland was quick to shut it down with a soft warning to the host just in case he was thinking of doing the same, “you better not,” Tim said. He took hip hop and made stories. It’s what people do with the word ‘Hip-Hop’ and how you interpret it.”

‘These people I’m naming changed my life to get me to where I am today. To make me love music even more,’ Timbaland added.

Elsewhere in the conversation, Timbaland detailed how he created the beat for Jay-Z’s 2006 track Jigga What, Jigga Who. ‘He had this concept in his head and he’s doing the flow and I said do the flow again,’ Timbo recalled. ‘ [Then] I hear the lyrics [humming sound]. I say gimme two minutes, went behind the keyboard, did the beat he was like [bewildered facial expression]. Then he said ‘no if you can make the beat…’ don’t finish your sentence I got you. I did the boom boom he was like [blown away]. And I said let me change it up I got you.’