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Timbaland and Metro Boomin on the Secrets to Making Hip-Hop Classics

Superstar producers Timbaland and Metro Boomin sit down to compare notes on everything from how they work to who's pickiest about their beats

Timbaland, 52, became one of the defining beatmakers for the 1990s and 2000s by pushing acts like Missy Elliott, Aaliyah, Ginuwine, and Justin Timberlake into spaces that were at once undeniable pop and verging on the avant-garde. Metro, 31, has followed in this auteurist lineage, his heavy bass and relentless bounce buoying work by rappers including Young Thug, Future, Migos, 21 Savage, and many others. When you’re coming from the hood — my mom didn’t have money to go buy me equipment, so I used to beat on the lunchroom tables and use double cassette decks and dub ahead so I could record over them.

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