Hit Parade: Flip It and Reverse It Edition
How Pharrell, Timbaland and Missy—three nerds from Virginia—added quirk to pop and gave us all a dope beat to step to.
What was in the water in Virginia Beach?! Starting in the ’90s and peaking in the ’00s, Pharrell Williams, Timothy “Timbaland” Mosley, and Missy Elliott—friends and family from the Tidewater Region—made nerdy pop normal on the charts. Their productions whirred, gurgled, pinged and rumbled—the handiwork of studio geeks—while their lyrics embraced the freaky: Missy demanding that you work it…Pharrell declaring he’s a hustler, baby…Timbaland bringing sexy back.
Join host Chris Molanphy as he explains how these three supa-dupa fly Virginia Beach geniuses helped us get our freak on. For over two decades, they never left you without a dope beat to step to.
Podcast production by Kevin Bendis.
Content retrieved from: https://slate.com/podcasts/hit-parade/2022/05/the-virginia-sound-infiltrated-millennial-rap-pop-and-r-and-b.