Malice of Clipse Talks About Growing Up With Timbaland

One half of the Thornton Brothers breaks down how his friend went from DJ Timmy Tim to Timbo The King.

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In anticipation of the 2010 VH1 Hip Hop Honors: The Dirty South, which airs on June 7, Complex and Miss Info have teamed with the network to celebrate this year's honorees with exclusive coverage.

When most people think of the Clipse, they think of The Neptunes. Which makes perfect sense since the two Virgina-based duos grew up together and have spent almost the last decade making beautiful music together. But there's another Virgina-based superproducer that Clipse actually go way back with as well: Timbaland. Way before Timbo had made enough bangers for us to make a list like The 25 Greatest Timbaland Songs Of All Time, Thornton brother Malice and DJ Timmy Tim (as he was known back then) went to high school together. With Timbaland being honored at this year's Hip Hop Honors, it was only right we got Malice on the horn to tell us about how Timbaland inspired him to take rap seriously, why the Clipse never worked with Timbaland, and how Timbo always kept it 100 with him.

As Told to Insanul "Incilin" Ahmed

On first meeting Timbaland...

Me, Pharrell, and Timbaland are all the same age and we went to the same school. We never had classes together, but we always kicked it in the lounge area and what was called the Commons. Back then, this was like '88-'89, I was in this group called Def Dual Productions, DDP. It was dual, as in two people. So the gist of it was that everybody had a partner. It was huge. We were on the news for being troublemakers. You know, that juvenile trouble. We were always fighting, stealing cars, just stuff you ain't had no business doing. Just doing dumb shit. It was really crazy.

On Timbaland blowing up...

Later on, I heard that Timbaland was writing songs for Jodeci, which was motivational because I saw that this thing was tangible and it could go down. And then I would still see Tim. When he came home, we still went to the same barbershop or whatever and I would see him at Eloquence and we would speak. He was driving the BMW, I forget what series it was, but it was the hottest thing riding through Virginia at the time. In fact, I seen Tim drive by in a few things. [Laughs.] I seen him on the strip, on the beach, and he kept it real every time. Every time he seen me, he kept it real.

On why Clipse never worked with Timbaland...

It was no real reason that we didn't work together. I don't attribute that to anything. If anything, it was a conflict of schedule or whatever. Tim's a real businessman and he's doing his thing. Actually, we came up closer with The Neptunes. We never said we wanted to work solely with The Neptunes, but that's just kind of how it happened. But you know, we don't do too bad with The Neptunes.

On his favorite Timbaland beat...

My favorite Timbaland beat? That's not fair. What was that joint that him, Missy, and Da Brat came out with? That. "One In A Million" by Aaliyah. That really was just impressive to me. I know I'm overlooking a lot right now.

On Timbaland's signature style...

It was that double beat, or that double skip. I don't know how to categorize it. You know what I'm talking about. It was that Timbaland signature. When you hear the beat, before you knew it was Timbaland, you knew it was Timbaland. He is just one of the illest producers to me. When I say that, I think of Timbaland, The Neptunes, Dr. Dre. I don't know what order, but they're who you think of when you think of producers. And I think they really defined the difference between a beatmaker and a producer. Before, you didn't even know there was a difference. They let you know, that's them and this is us. It's talent, bro. He's gifted.

RELATED: THE 25 GREATEST TIMBALAND SONGS OF ALL TIME...

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