Timbaland: Empire

Showing posts with label Empire. Show all posts

Timbaland Exits 'Empire' As Darkchild Signs On

Timbaland, who helmed the songwriting team for Empire since its inception, has exited. Joining Fox’s hit television series for its third season are four-time Grammy Award-winning songwriter/producer Rodney Jerkins as supervising music producer and chart-topping songwriter Ester Dean. “We were happy to work with Timbaland during the first two seasons,” says Shawn Holiday, senior VP of A&R for Columbia Records, which releases Empire’s music.

“But we wanted to take a different approach for season 3. We dealt a lot with family drama in the first season through songs like ‘Good Enough’ when Lucious Lyon threw his son Jamal in the trash can. That was a very emotional music moment. So we’re going for the same success with upcoming songs like ‘Mama,’ about Cookie being the backbone of the family, and a duet with Mariah Carey and Jussie Smollett.” Of bringing Jerkins and Dean onboard, Holiday adds, “Rodney is a dynamic, multi-format producer experienced in urban, rhythmic and pop. And Dean excels at writing big songs with catchy hooks.”

*billboard.com

Timbaland Reveals Pharrell Is His Cousin At 'The Cruz Show', Talks Empire, Production Process, & Introduces New Artists 'Obs3ssed'

Timbaland visited The Cruz Show to promote his new Mixtape and his new artists 'Obs3ssed' and Blaze Servin' with Tweezie and he talked about Empire while he's been asked to make a beat on spot, he also revealed that Pharrell Williams is indeed his cousin because of Pharrell’s Grandma, check out the video below.

'Empire' Season 3 To Premier On March 30th

’Empire’ is coming back with their Third Season which is due March 30th with more music by Timbaland & Co.

*release-date.info

Timbaland x Lee Hawkins Interview, Discusses New Book, Career & Empire

*pressreleaserocket.net

’Empire’ Is Nominated For A Grammy

The first batch of nominations for the 58th Annual Grammy Awards was announced at 8:15 a.m. ET on CBS. Alicia Keys, a 15-time Grammy Award winner herself, revealed the musicians vying in the four General Field categories: Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year, Record Of The Year and Best New Artist.

Fifteen minutes later, nominations across all 83 Categories were announced via a press release and were made available on Grammy.com Including a nomination for ’Empire’. The Grammy's return to L.A.'s Staples Center on Feb. 15, 2016, and will be broadcast in high-definition and 5.1 surround sound on CBS from 8–11:30 p.m. ET. No host has been announced.

Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media
Empire: Season 1

*eonline.com

Timbaland x Vulture.com Interview, Talks Empire, Not Joining Suge Knight & Ruling The Mixtape Era Soon

By Erik Parker. Chart-topping producer Timothy “Timbaland” Mosley has always been a bit of a showman. When music moves him, his eyes bug out, his face turns cartoon-character elastic, and his body shifts in all directions. One credible theory — okay, my own — maintains that he’s spent so much time connected to his ASR-10 sampling keyboard that the two have melded mainframes. With his cyborg superpowers.

The Virginia Beach native has provided the bounce to Jay-Z’s “Big Pimpin’,” the groove to Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me A River,” and his fidgety wall of sound to artists of all stripes (Missy Elliott, Britney Spears, Kanye West, and many more). Now, as the executive producer of music for Empire, he’s busy building another type of, well, empire. In its second season, Timbo continues to lay stellar tracks for a rambunctious cast, led by Terrence Howard (Lucious Lyon), who plays the diabolical head of a fictitious rap dynasty.

*vulture.com

Timbaland Discusses His Role As Musical Director Of 'Empire'

*wsj.com

Yazz & Timbaland - Dynasty (Empire Scene) (2015)

Now this is what I’m talking about, this has to be the only tune you really can tell this is straight up produced by Timbo The King. In the latest episode of Empire ‘Fires Of Heaven’, Timbaland himself has a cameo in the show where he performs Hakeem’s (Yazz) new single titled ‘Dynasty’, check out the video from the show above and the whole tune below, make sure to cop it on iTunes.

Empire Season 2 Premiere Event

New Empire Tracks From Season 2

Here are 2 new tracks from the Second Season of Empire and what we can expect on the new Soundtrack, check them out below.

Empire (Season 2) (Trailer) (2015)

Empire's Yazz Talks Timbaland & Solo Material

By Catriona Wightman. Empire star Yazz has revealed that working with Timbaland on the show has been "a dream come true". Speaking to Digital Spy to promote the release of the show's official soundtrack in the UK, Yazz revealed that his favourite songs are 'No Apologies', 'Can't Truss 'Em' and 'Conqueror' - but admitted that he's disappointed not to see 'Drip Drop' on the track list. "It was a lot of music we recorded," he said. "There were a lot of samples and stuff that didn't make the album."

But Yazz, who plays youngest son Hakeem in the hit show, revealed that the past year has been a "very dramatic change" and raved about working with Timbaland on the past season. "It's been amazing," he said. "It was a dream come true. I always wanted to be a musician and work with the greats like Timbaland. The songwriting was great, so I'm just happy to be involved." He also revealed that he's hoping to have even more creative control of the songs in future episodes, saying: "In season one I didn't really have a lot of input.

*digitalspy.co.uk

By Hadley Henriette, photos by Nick Garcia. Great songs never die. They live on forever in people’s hearts, minds and music collections. In this vein, superstar music producer Timbaland, née Tim Mosley, occupies a little place inside millions of people all over the planet with the hundreds of hits he’s created over an extremely prolific twenty-five year career. “I never count them,” he says from his sprawling South Miami home. Perhaps it is because the number of songs he’s crafted reaches well over five hundred.

His ability to be prolific is coming in handy on one of his latest gigs—producing the music on Fox’s wildly addictive nighttime soap, Empire. The show centers around a hip-hop mogul named Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard), CEO of Empire Entertainment. The show features an all-star cast that performs multiple songs each episode. The pace of creation is fast and furious, but doesn’t faze Timbaland. “The pace is not the problem; the hardest part is understanding what they want you to do for each song and character, and making that happen.”

*hauteliving.com

By Gabriela Tully Claymore. Girls star Jemima Kirke interviewed Courtney Love for the latest issue of Citizens Of Humanity, and if you’re familiar with Kirke’s character Jessa on the show and Love’s reputation, then you know that they’re an ideal duo. Kirke asked dozens of questions on a variety of topics, but it’s especially interesting to read what Love had to say about working with Timbaland to prepare for her role as Elle Dallas in the popular FOX series Empire. Apparently, Timbaland had to tweak a lot of the songs that he produced for Love’s character in order to suit her voice:

I saw you in Empire. Courtney, you were so fucking good! I was blown away!
Oh, thank you!

It’s just your singing—you singing was my favorite part. It was your voice, it was your style, it was the way you sang painfully, you know, so that was awesome. When you got sent that role, did you immediately want to do that?
Yeah! I didn’t get sent that role, though.

*stereogum.com

Empire Season 2 Will Feature Chris Rock, Alicia Keys, Ne-Yo & Lenny Kravitz

Before season two of EMPIRE airs this fall, Lee Daniels and Danny Strong’s breakout drama hit-series has already locked in special guest from a few key standout people. Chris Rock, Alicia Keys and Lenny Kravitz have all been tapped to guest star in the sophomore season, according to FOX Entertainment Group.

The trio is just the first of many cameos we can expect to see in the now 18-episode orderwhich will continue through the spring of next year. In related news, Ne-Yo, who’s been public in supporting the show has been given music producer duties alongside Timbaland to help create material for the actors-musicians, correlating with the shows plots.

*freeonsmash.com

Ne-Yo Helps Timbaland Write New Music For Empire Season 2 With 18 Episodes

"We just signed Ne-Yo who’s going to be writing all new music with Timbaland," announced Fox co-chairs Dana Walden and Gary Newman to the thrill of anyone who thought mid-'00s R&B was underrated. Fox also announced that Empire will stick around in its time slot, Wednesday nights at 9 p.m.

As expected, Fox executives also said that the second season of Empire will consist of 18 Episodes split into two halves — one for fall, one for spring — with a crazy cliffhanger for the midseason hiatus in which a fourth Lyon son emerges. He'll be played by Zac Efron.

*vulture.com
*nydailynews.com

Taraji P. Henson Discusses Working With Timbaland On ‘Empire’

In the US, Empire is 2015's hottest new TV show, with over 23 million viewers tuning in to March's Season One finale. Now E4 has snapped up the rights to the musical drama series created by Lee Daniels (The Butler) and Danny Strong (The Hunger Games - Mockingjay), giving British viewers the chance to discover why America's become so obsessed.

Basically, there's a lot to get obsessed about. The unapologetically soapy show centres on a fictional hip-hop music and entertainment company, Empire, owned by Terence Howard's rapper-turned-mogul Lucious Lyon, who pits his three sons against one another to find a rightful heir after being diagnosed with a terminal degenerative disease that, obviously, he isn't telling anyone about.

Throw in some impressive original music executive produced by Timbaland, guest appearances from Snoop Dogg, Rita Ora and Mary J. Blige, and Courtney Love in a recurring role as a drug-addicted rock star on the comeback trail, and Empire is genuinely unmissable TV. NME met up with Taraji P. Henson recently to find out her take on the show's success.

The music on the show, awesomely, was executive produced by Timbaland. Is he on set much?
"He comes every now and again. He has a producing partner, Jim Beanz, who's pretty much in Chicago [where Empire is filmed] with the cast all the time. But Timbaland comes in and out and has a lot of say and does the final remixing of all the tracks. He is very hands on, but he's not on set every day because he has so many other projects going on. Because he's so busy, sometimes the guys have to fly down to Miami to record with him. He's so brilliant at what he does, he's like a Quincy Jones of today."

*nme.com

Empire Soundtrack Reaches No. 1 Spot

By Jason Keil. The soundtrack to the hit television show Empire reached the top of the Billboard 200 this week, which apparently is the first time a record of original music for a network show has achieved the feat in 20 years (Somewhere Jan Hammer is crying on his keyboard, since Miami Vice was the last soundtrack to accomplish this.). While it might seem easy nowadays when you consider how much record sales have declined overall, it further proves how much the show has become a cultural touchstone when there is so much quality television vying for the eyes of the American public.

Empire is one of the few shows to actually increase viewers from the first episode to the second. Why does it resonate so well with the public? One reason might be that it's a retelling of Shakespeare tragedy King Lear, a story that has resonated for centuries, through the lens of the crazy, sexy, cutthroat world of hip-hop. The show's controversial, timely topics include how white America links violence to rap lyrics, the real state of race relations, homophobia in hip-hop, and separating the quality of art from the person performing it (In an early episode, one rapper goes on a drunken rant and, in a Kanye West moment, calls President Obama a "sellout.").

It's also melodramatic, anchored in the acting of Taraji P. Henson, who plays the ex-con Cookie, the former wife of mogul Lucious Lyon, played by Terrence Howard. Henson and Howard's chemistry recalls the dynamic they shared while creating music about the difficulties of pimpin' in 2005's Hustle & Flow, but now Howard's Empire character Lyon has become too wrapped up in the game, forgetting what inspired him in the first place.

Empire OST Season 1 (Deluxe) (2015)

Jussie Smollet - Good Enough
V. Bozeman - What Is Love
Jussie Smollett & Yazz - No Apologies
Serayah McNeill & Yazz - Keep It Movin'
Jussie Smollett - Keep Your Money
Yazz & Serayah McNeill - Drip Drop
Yazz - Can't Truss 'Em
Jussie Smollett - I Wanna Love You
Jussie Smollett & Yazz - Money For Nothing
Courtney Love - Walk Out On Me
Jussie Smollett & Yazz - You're So Beautiful
Estelle & Jussie Smollett - Conqueror
Jennifer Hudson - Remember The Music
Mary J. Blige & Terrence Howard - Shake Down
Yazz - Power Of The Empire
Jussie Smollett - Nothing To Lose
Jennifer Hudson & Juicy J - Whatever Makes You Happy
Charles Hamilton & Rita Ora - NY Raining

*phoenixnewtimes.com

By Alexa Tietjen. Empire‘s music director had no idea the show’s soundtrack would be such a hit, but he considers the wide reception of it all a blessing. Jim Beanz, who also appears as Titan on the show, has been working with Timbaland, Empire’s executive music producer, for a decade, and he’s the genius behind the show’s hit song “Drip Drop.”

Find out what Beanz had to say about working with Timbaland, Jennifer Hudson, and up-and-coming rapper Tink, as well as his former addiction to Love & Hip Hop Atlanta. Look forward to the rest of Empire Season 1 with these three things you need to know about the rest of the season, and enjoy this throwback song, which Beanz had a hand in creating.

You’ve been working with Timbaland for a while. What’s your relationship with him like?
Me and Timbaland have been working for about 10 years. I was usually the guy who he would pull in whenever he had any singers. I started working with him along the lines of vocal production. Over the past four or five years was when he started to see that I was a writer and a producer also.

*vh1.com

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