Edd’s MANtra: Ginuwine vs Timbaland

April 20, 2010Edward Bowsercelebrity dish, Edd's MANtra, music0

The Fugees. NWA. Bad Boy Records’ 90s roster. Eric B and Rakim.

Why are all our favorite musical alliances doomed to come to an end?

The one group I never thought would fall apart was Timbaland and friends. Back in the late 90s, Timbaland, Magoo, Missy Elliott, Aaliyah, Ginuwine and Playa were my favorite crew. They certainly weren’t the second coming of Wu-Tang but their innovation and creativity pushed all of them to stardom. And, unlike some rap alliances that seemed shaky from the get-go (50 Cent and Game, for example), Tim’s crew seemed like true friends.

Oh, but how times have changed.

Ginuwine had sort of a career revival last year. A Man’s Thoughts was his first album in four years and the first single, “Last Chance,” actually got a chance to shine. When a man who’s pushing 40 gets his songs played on 106 and Park regularly he should be proud.

The second single was to be “Get Involed,” which featured old friends Missy Elliott and Timbaland. But when it came time to shoot the video Tim was nowhere to be found. From Atlanta’s 107.5, courtesy of sohh.com:

“We did a song called ‘Get Involved’ and we paid him $50,000 to appear in the video,” Gin explained in an interview. “And we paid him his producing fee and this dude didn’t even get in it. He messed me up to the point where we had to make an animation of the video and put it overseas. Now throughout the years, he always said he was gonna work with me and all of that but he never did and I didn’t say anything. I always said [to the media], ‘Our schedules are conflicting.’ I’m definitely a professional, but when you actually do something, you deserve to be called out.”

Here’s the video in question – looks like poor Ginuwine had to replace Timbaland and Missy with Lord Zedd from the Power Rangers. Yeesh.

Now, y’all know I love Timbo and there are always two sides to these things, but this sounds pretty messed up. If they paid the man he should have showed up for work. I figured there was trouble in paradise back in the early 00s when Timbaland became the biggest producer on the planet while Ginuwine vanished. Even Magoo occasionally still shows up for a guest feature and a ham sandwich. I’m sure he’s happy to have both.

But here’s what worries me the most:

“And it’s not only me he’s done things to, I’m not gonna speak on that, I’m gonna speak on me. But when people do that, they can’t just get away with it. Whether you’re a friend or supposedly a friend or not, you don’t do that to people.”

Late last week on Timbaland’s MySpace page (YES that thing still exists…), there was a link to a new Tim track called “Talk That,” featuring T-Pain and some poor soul named Billy Blue.

That song sounded mighty familiar to me, and then I recalled that “Talk That” was set to be on Missy’s shelved/delayed/CP time album Block Party. Here’s the Missy version of the song.

The songs are identical, except in Tim’s version Missy gets bumped for Billy Bob or whatever his name is. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm….

In recent years Missy and Timbaland have been working together less frequently. Tim barely put in any work on Missy’s last album. I hope Missy isn’t the other friend that Ginuwine alleges is getting shafted.

Missy without Timbaland? My heart won’t allow it!

In the meantime, let’s relive the good old days, before everyone was rich and bitter.

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