For years, Virginia producer Timbaland and Brooklyn emcee Jay-Z worked together to craft numerous records that would later be featured on Vol. 3… Life and Times of S. Carter, The Black Album, and more. And with Tim’s extensive work on the newly-released Magna Carta Holy Grail, it came as a surprise to many when it was revealed that the two artists had previously parted ways musically.
At the top of the month, Timbaland revealed the news and credited his past falling out with the Magna Carta Holy Grail rapper to “disagreements” and “petty stuff.” And during a recent interview with BBC Radio 1, Jay-Z shared his thoughts on the pairs past indifferences.
According to Jay-Z, his issues with Timbaland arose shortly after The Blueprint 3 was released and were primarily due to Tim’s demeanor.
“He was still on Blueprint 3, but the fallout happened at the end of that album. It really happened—the way the album happened and a couple of songs was getting leaked, that was his songs. And it was like that whole thing was just like it just ruined the whole process,” Jay-Z revealed. “I wanted him and Kanye to produce, and Kanye who was the executive producer of Blueprint was like ‘Yo, let’s get Tim. Let’s bring Tim in.’ We were all inviting of him and he just wasn’t accepting of the process. And it seemed like it was more about him than the actual album.”
Jay-Z says the producer did reemerge following their fallout and returned with a more mature outlook, one that helped in easing any past tensions.
Timbaland later went on to produce a majority of the songs featured on Magna Carta Holy Grail including “La Familia” and the Justin Timberlake-assisted “Holy Grail.”
“When you go in and make an album there’s not—you have to put all ego aside,” said Jay-Z. “I’m putting ego aside. Everyone has to put ego aside for the sake of the project. And he was accepting of that. That was almost like the last straw type of thing. We just went our separate ways. After those concerts he came back, I saw the new Timbaland. He had this maturity and this growth and I was like, ‘Oh okay. This is gonna work out.’”
