Suez Beatz, Timbaland Phenomenon – Explain the variety

Suez Beatz tells a funny story about how he came to co-create his comrade Timbaland with Instagram Live in the vertical, weekly, real-time, virtual DJ battle that pitted the R&B icon into a (usually) friendly music competition. The series has seen Kenny fight “Babyface” Edmunds with Teddy Riley, Erica Badu colleague Joel Scott and boyfriend Nellie while a virtual crowd of hundreds of thousands of people have been on social media, making it a lockdown event since it debuted in March.

“Tim and I have always competed with each other in a variety of ways,” said Suez from his home studio in New York. “It simply came to our notice then. No. Real Because – we didn’t fix it. “

The rivalry is both wonderful and disturbing – it’s the kind of shadow that casts on each other in adolescence – as lyricist-producers-artists have created deep music catalogs and legacies over the past two decades. Where each player tries to keep the other on top with the classics from their own work.

Born in Virginia in the mid-1990s, Timbaland (pictured above, Timothy Moseley) made multiple hits with his longtime collaborator Missy Elliott, first Alia and then Elliott’s own. In later years his trademark term, with its stimulus and mechanical-hooks, formed the basis for the hits of J-Z, Jodice, Usher, Genuine, Boys II Men, Nellie Furtado – even Soundguard frontman Chris Cornell – arguably with “Justin Timberla” Medium

Around the same time, the Bronx-spad teenager Suez Bitz Kasem Dean, pictured above (right) DMX’s “Rough Riders Anthem”, Noragar’s “Banned from TV” and especially J-Z’s “Meaning” hit the scene with cash hoes. “Over the years, his strong voice, with its scattering and dramatic orchestration, DMX, Eve and other members of the Rough Rider family as well as Maya, Jadakis, LL Cool J, TI hit more hits and Suez’s wife Alicia Keys.

Yet all these years of competition ended one day in 2007 when the Suez team was invited to his home for a talk. “In one conversation we moved on, leaving the past behind,” Suez said. What happened that day – turned into a competition for cooperation – laid the foundation for the Virgos ethics.

After a very long time of this happy meeting, Suez went into DJ-war mode, first with Kanye West on stage at New Jersey’s Hot 97’s annual SummerJam concert, and then a year later against producer Just Blaze.

“People like good fights and Kanye was at his height as an artist,” Suez said, “but the fight with the producers has never happened before. Tim and I then started talking about doing something similar, off-and-on, ”and the two paired up for the 2018 Summerjam.

“Unfortunately, this epidemic happened.”

And in mid-March, Tim called Switzer on Instagram, considering it a bat signal for battle.

“I loaded my bit machine and called him too,” Suez said. “We’ve been live, the best playing audience has gone wild in real time, talking to us, responding to tracks. Two hours after Tim called me, Vergez started quite well.

Tim now explains, “Don’t announce it – just do it.”

The idea behind the Battle of Verge is simple. Timbaland and Suez Beatz chose two icons for an Instagram live event as a DJ – usually in the fertile R&B / hip-hop scene that they both appeared in in the early 1990s – during a 10-song concert during Vergez. The three-hour session had to be confronted. Artists choose signature songs and tracks that they designate as producers, songwriters, remixes, or performers, although the rules are not strict: they play, for example, songs played by her old friends at the Nellie State property (Philly Beanie Siegel and Freeway) with Ludacris To kick.

Whatever happens to the on-screen performers, there are real-time listeners who cheered from 250,000 (for the April Scott Storch-Money Fresh match-up) to 710,000 (May’s Jill Scott-Ericah Badu Verzuz) cheers on players and comments about the action.

It’s taken in the air of a football or basketball game, but players, listeners and curators can listen to and respond to each other.

“Even though we’re stealing Veruz, we’re there, tuning in with everyone until the screen turns black,” Timbaland said. “Once it’s over, Suez and I are ready for a drink.”

Fadia Quader, head of Instagram’s music partnership, who played a key role in the series, said:

On the way, two rounds of The-Dream vs. Sun Garrett, French Montana vs. Tori Lanez, Manny Fresh vs. Scott Storch, Boy-1DA vs. Hit-Boy, Ne-Yo vs. Jonty Austin, Lil Zone vs. T-Pain, Babyface vs. Teddy Riley , RZA vs. DJ Premiere (“It was my favorite,” says Jill Scott), and last Saturday’s Ludacris vs. Nellie – with two coming this weekend: the first reggae fight between Benny Mann and Bouncy Killer on Saturday, defeating Jagged Edge on Monday The first R&B group war.

Audience members who come to enjoy on social media include artists such as Travis Scott, Chance the Rapper, Missy Elliott, Snoop Dogg, Tierra Hack, Common, Fat Joe, Tyres, Busta Ramis and Jamie Foxx.

Snoop engaged Nellie for her lustful WiFi connection (“Use your phone!” Snoop broke half of her screen as a result of Nellie’s disconnection); Another seemingly memorable response came from celebrity Sean Garrett from Fat Joe during Verge’s battle with The-Dream: “F wrong wrong intellect ‘this n – a?” Joe commented live on Garrett’s lip licking ticket.

“Vergez moved from war to cooperation, but naturally everyone is still competitive in a relaxed way,” Suez said. “Babyface was a great, smooth competitor. Nellie was a super hot dog.

However, it is the leveling of the playing field that makes Chance the Rapper look like an average viewer, which has helped Vergez to see and be seen in both hip-hop and R&B as well as old and new audiences.

“Everyone is on VIP,” Timbaland said, adding that during last weekend’s session, Ludacris called him out of the blue out and asked if it was okay to play snippets of some of their recently released songs. Studio sessions (including a controversial one mentioned by R. Kelly and Bill Cosby).

“I told him to play it, not the whole song,” reminds Tim. “It wants more people.”

He’s not wrong: participating artists commented that their streams have risen dramatically in about 24 hours since the Verge session.

“The next morning my catalog exceeded 300 percent,” says Jill Scott. “It simply came to our notice then.

Often, people only know your hits because of the work of the radio. It was my first time doing Instagram live, and looking at the other versions I knew it would be a great opportunity to actually share how much music I have.

An unusual aspect of the Vergez session is that it is drawing an old audience on Instagram – the fans appearing on the platform were among the artists of the 1990s / 2000s, usually in their 40s and often not really digital native – and although this is certainly the curator’s generation. , Another reason is that the format requires a large stock of hits.

“Our catalogs go deep and the catalogs of the artists we crate go deep,” Suez said.

The team added, “The catalog is essential,” “If you have 40 or 50 songs, you can have 20 great songs.”

Similarly, matchups are considered very carefully by curators.

“Our thing is celebrating creativity but it’s become a fan of Tim and my music,” Suez said. “You can drop the names of your choice together, but will they work spontaneously? Ne-yo had a big name, but [songwriter] The crowd sang after Austin in a similar vein, and the audience had a great celebration.

Guessing some proposed future fights, he said, “DMX wants to fight J-Z, but he will sound better against Eminem. People want Usher and Chris Brown, however, it’s a big brother / little brother thing: all I want to see is fight Chris Brown and Justin Bieber against Justin Timberlake. That makes sense to me. “

Timbaland Second, “The dynamics of sound and personality must be there: sometimes they are the same, sometimes they are opposite. You want something that works goldenly And Is entertaining. “

This exposure had little effect on behind-the-scenes hitmakers like Austin and Garrett.

“The younger generation is learning from this,” Suez said. “They’re calling Instant Verges artists for feature or production work. Babyface’s phone is ringing, as are Teddy Riley’s and Lil John’s. Ludacris called this morning, saying that the ‘Vergez effect’ was real, his phone had not blossomed like this for years. He is feeling love all over the world. “

In fact, despite the premise of the Verge competition, the sessions are mostly about mutual respect. Jill Scott called her virgins an “emotional collaboration” with Badur, as well as an education for the audience. The pair have a history surrounding the 1999 hit “You Got Me”: Scott, then largely unknown, wrote the part of the songwriting female singer and sang it in the original version, but the famous Badu part sang in the final version (finally fulfilled) hopefully his star power. The song will hit.

Scott says, “People though Ericah and I were enemies, which never happened.” “That’s why I first died against Verzuz:‘ War? No. ‘I like when women sing together for a melodious, word combination. The two birds go towards each other never sounding good. I don’t want to try to rip someone off or try to rip me off. Ericah called me and I said, ‘If we celebrate each other, respect each other, it will work.’ And we did. ”

And the unexpected lack of some artists with technology has made for some weird moments – Ludacris playing his new songs because Nellie was having technical difficulties – who the curator and Instagram are in this case … as much as possible, whatever.

“Putting two artists and 20 songs together – that’s the easy part,” Suez said. “Fixing your WiFi, getting on the phone with technicians, which no one does when we ask – that’s the hard part.”

“These things happen,” Kader said. “Teddy Riley wanted to turn to him [first] Veruzz turned into a big production, while Suez and I advised him to keep it simple. Whatever went wrong, did – which comes with over-producing – but Teddy was so humble and open that when he re-matched Babyface, he was ready. “

Although Veruz’s featured performers are older, it’s revealed in a post via social media that many young fans are tuning in (Instagram refuses to share data).

Millennial artist Ellen Tiberino likes rappers like the centered Lamar, Drake and Migos, but when she saw Verzuz on her Instagram site and found more music from the artists she saw on the platform.

“During Jill and Ericah’s time I got caught up and loved the power,” Tiberino says. “There was history, there was good vibration, the whole thing was positive. You see their homes – Erica had a cool abstract mural painted on her wall, with a guess clip of Bruce Lee, Jill sat down with a glass of wine, talking about the musicians who worked with her, it was great. The Luda-Nelly event was also great.

And for the generation that grew up in this music, like the Verge family reunion. লাইভ নেশন আরবান প্রেসিডেন্ট এবং ম্যাভেরিক ম্যানেজমেন্ট পার্টনার শন গি সাধারণত কাজের জন্য ইনস্টাগ্রাম ব্যবহার করেন, তবে “আমি প্রত্যেকের সাথেই ছিলাম – কাজ করছি না, তবে একটি অনুরাগী হিসাবে,” তিনি বলেছেন। “এই দু’জন প্রযোজক হিসাবে যা তৈরি করেছিল তার সাফল্য কেন তারা ভার্জুজ তৈরি করেছিল into

“এটি কোনও দলের সাথে ব্র্যান্ড দ্বারা রাবার-স্ট্যাম্প নয় – এটি তাদের অন্তর থেকে এবং হ্যান্ড-অন,” জি অবিরত বলে। “যুবা ও বৃদ্ধ, সংস্কৃতি অনুভূতিপূর্ণ সংযোগ অনুভব করে। এছাড়াও, এটি একটি শিক্ষা – যেমন, আমি জানতাম না স্কট স্টার্চ এই সমস্ত গান করেছিলেন did বুমারস, জেনার এক্স, মিলেনিয়ালস, আমার 15-বছরের ছেলের প্রতি সপ্তাহে সমস্ত সুর, তিনি তাঁর বন্ধুদের জানান এবং তারা ট্র্যাকগুলি প্রবাহিত করে। এটিই সাম্প্রদায়িক অংশ: সুইজ এবং টিম একটি পার্টি করছে এবং আমরা সবাই আমন্ত্রিত। “

এই সপ্তাহান্তে দুটি লড়াইয়ের পরে কী ঘটেছিল, এমিনেম-ডিএমএক্স ম্যাচটি সুনির্দিষ্ট মনে হচ্ছে, যদিও ডিএমএক্স তাকে জে-জেডকে গ্রহণ করার জন্য কার্যত ট্র্যাশ-কথা বলছে। এবং মনিকা এবং ব্র্যান্ডিকে দলবদ্ধ করা – যদিও 1998 এর যুগল “দ্য বয় ইজ মাইন” ইতিহাসের অন্যতম হিট একক – প্রত্যেকের ঠোঁটে, কেইশা কোল এবং আশান্তি কেবল তাদের টুপিটি রিংয়ে ফেলেছিল। এরপরে কী হতে পারে কে জানে?

টিমবাল্যান্ড বলেছেন, “আমরা শুনেছি লোডা এবং নেলি ভ্রমণ করতে চায়, কেভিন হার্ট একটি ভার্জুজ কৌতুক সিরিজ করতে চায়, যাতে আমাদের অন্যান্য ঘরানার লোকদেরও আঘাত করা উচিত,” টিমবাল্যান্ড বলেছেন। “আমরা এতে আছি ভার্জুজ আমাদের চেয়ে বড় ”