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That was the intent.

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The intent was that, in my mind.

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It didn't have to sound like that.

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It needed to sound like
something that was exciting.

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Welcome to Dream Asylum Studio X.

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I am Danja, I am here today with you guys
in Mix With The Masters,

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and we are about to go through probably
one of my personal favorite records ever,

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that would be
Justin Timberlake's "My Love".

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I famously produced these records with
Timbaland, and we worked with him

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in his studio in Virginia.

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Right now, I have the Pro Tools session
to kind of, it's best to go through it

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in Pro Tools.

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I wasn't using Ableton at the time,
I was using an MPC

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and I get into how I created it
on the MPC.

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We might have been two
or three songs deep at this point.

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I know we did "What Goes Around",
it was time to get to it.

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This record came about,
I actually was challenged.

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There's only one record
that didn't make the project.

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We did 10.

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All 10 made the project,
there's 1 that didn't make it

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where it was a track Tim came up with,
they did a song,

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it was a cool song, track was crazy.

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Then, Tim looks at me
and tells me, "Your turn."

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I can't lie, I was stuck for a couple
of days with what to do, how to do.

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Everything you can think of
for a creative to try to figure out,

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what you going to come with?

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I had an opportunity
to be in a room by myself,

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that's how this whole thing came about.

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I sat down with the intent to break this
beat block, and I was on my MPC 4000.

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I started with the drum pattern
with just that...

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The drums are smacking already.

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So, I was already like,
with just that simple pattern,

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there was no hi-hats,
nothing else going on,

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it was just that simple pattern with the,
I guess the decisions I made

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with the kick and the snare was just

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the perfect combination of kick and snare.

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And the tempo and everything
was just perfect, it just locked.

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I was like, "There's some sounds
that I've got that I heard,

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and there's a whole influence of things
that I want to try.

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Now would be that time,"
especially because the tempo was so right.

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That's when I clicked on Vanguard
and went to all of these trance sounds

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that I was playing with.

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I just knew the essence of trance music.

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Just long story short...
well, I'll make a long story short.

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Went to this club, I was with Demo,
his engineer, and I was with Marcella,

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and there might have been a few other
people when we went to this club.

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I was just watching these
people dance and move.

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Of course, they were on drugs,
but they were moving and just lost

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in this trance music,
and this was the first time I had seen it.

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And I just was like,
I have to figure out how to get that

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into what I do somehow.

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Why don't people
move like that to what I do?

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I get these sounds,
I mentioned in a story before,

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I bought a group of sounds for $1,500.

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These sounds had this plug-in,
Vanguard, it was perfect.

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It was the exact sounds
that I heard in the club.

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I didn't know how to do it.

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Of course, you do your first couple of
beats and you're trying to do trance music

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over again, that doesn't work.

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I was laughed at by a couple of people,
I won't name any names.

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But rightfully so,
I should have been laughed at

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because my first few
trance tracks was trash.

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I got this drum pattern, it's smacking.

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This was it.

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I hit the Vanguard, I'm scrolling through,
scrolling through, scrolling through,

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then, I'm like, "What if I play
chords with these sounds?"

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What if I play chords with these sounds?

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I ended up playing
these chords to the beat.

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It was just like the craziest eureka
moment I ever had in my life, one of them.

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I just was like, this is it, this is it.

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And it locked in so perfectly with
the beat, it was just something else.

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And that was it.

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Then, people hearing me work in
headphones, "Yo, go listen to this."

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They all come downstairs,
still ear hustling, finally get it

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in the loudspeakers,
and it was just one of those things

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where... undeniable, I know we all had
experiences as far as music creators,

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as far as how undeniable,
when you hear something undeniable.

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That's how it came about,
that was the bones of the record,

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that was the concept.

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That's how the concept of the record came.

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Then, we got it in Pro Tools, and Justin,
without anybody in the room, writing,

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he wrote the whole album by the way
with nobody in the room, not any other

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influence besides Tim giving him insight
and inspiration on a few records.

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I'm watching this man write every song
with no pad, no pen,

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I tell people all the time,
if I can find a piece of paper

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with a lyric on it from that album,
it got to be worth millions of dollars.

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I'm saying that because
I know I'm not going to find it.

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That man wrote every song, every lyric,
every melody, every harmony in his head,

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and spit that whole album
out just like that.

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Walking around, if you know him, you
know he... on his beard or his mustache,

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and he figuring it out,
and he figured that whole album out.

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That's what he came up with,
and his approach to singing falsetto

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and to sing this love song
on that track was just like,

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it was mind-blowing.

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So, back to the track,
that's where the magic started.

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I did the, I think I also laid
the other... I had laid that line too.

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So, all I had on the track was the kick,
the snare, the meat which was the chords

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and the...

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I had that thing...

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Just something to cut across
what was going on.

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I just wanted to, I don't know how,
but my thought process was to

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enhance even more
that chord pattern with the art,

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and to do that melody to cut across
and it became its own hook,

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kind of [inaudible]...

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That's how it was.

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And then, everybody going crazy,
participating, throwing in,

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Tim beatboxing, throwing
[inaudible], add the "baby".

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All the sound, it's an angel sound that I
use that was from SampleTank,

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and it was just this vocal thing,
and I still use to this day.

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It's just the way that it moved and the
way that it sounds just allows me to create

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any type of weird melody that I want.

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It was able to articulate my thought
process melodically on a record,

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and I love how that angel sound did that,
and it just created this extra

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ethereal thing that was in the track.

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And then, of course, I added more chords,
and then the bass,

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and all these other things,
and that's how it started,

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and that's how it became what it became.

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It sounds like a lot,
but it's really not a lot,

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it's not a lot of sounds and it's not a
lot of music really going on

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in this entire track.

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I think the Arpeggiator did so much work
that it covered a lot of ground.

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The kick was open, and Tim came through
perfectly with the beatbox

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to just add the rhythm that he needed
without us having to do hi-hats.

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There's no hi-hat in the record,
that's what he do.

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He's able to always figure out a way
to give you what you need somehow

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without using the thing that
you obviously would use.

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So, the beatbox created the movement,
we bouncing, we bouncing.

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The Arpeggiator created even more
movement, so we didn't need hi-hats.

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You didn't have to have
these extra elements.

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Also, with the beatbox,
it just filled up so much frequency-wise

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that it added that extra crack
on top of the snare,

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it added that extra...
on top of the kick, it added that extra...

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it just filled up a lot of space,
along with the human element

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of the looseness of a beatbox,
it wasn't so tight.

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That's why this track is so different,
because we're using something

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like an Arpeggiator that obviously
in trance records and dance records,

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very quantized, very syncopated
and on the beat and in time.

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But because I sampled it and ran it
in the MPC, I was able to, I triggered it,

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I didn't even play it on point,

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but I ain't triggered it on point either.

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So, if you really listen closely
to the Arpeggiator, it starts

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and it was just kind of slightly off,
but that's hip-hop,

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that's the art of hip-hop,
is the imperfections.

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And to take this type of record and listen
to it now, I can hear everything

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that I would have done over,
or tried to make perfect.

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But again, I like the rawness,
the rawness is what makes it what it is.

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Obviously, during that timeframe,
that was a very intense learning period.

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But also, I was very confident
in what my sound was and my style.

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I had gone, shied away from doing anything
that sounded remotely like Timbaland

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a long time ago.

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Obviously him being an influence,
I was influenced

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by a lot of different people.

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I would make tracks that sounded
just like Pharell, I would make tracks

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that sounded just like Rodney Jerkins,
I would make tracks that sound

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just like Teddy Riley, obviously,
tracks that sound just like Tim.

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By making all of these different styles
of tracks, I ended up finding my own way.

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I ended up gravitating towards sounds that
I like, chord progressions that I like.

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I used to come around playing chord
progressions around Tim that had his face

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screwed up any type of way,
and I always would have to show him where,

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nah, you can sing the same melody,
I'm just playing around the melody,

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that doesn't matter.

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I always wanted to do chord progressions
that turn your head a little bit,

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and when you're writing songs,
you learn as a musician,

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we can make the mistake of getting
too musical, but you're only impressing

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your musician friends.

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So, I had to figure out how to do that,
but also make it so that a song

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can be written to.

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The goal isn't always
to try to turn someone's head

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and make them feel confused,
you want them to feel, to listen.

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So, by the time, when the sync happened
with me and Tim, I think

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I had my own approach and he had his own
approach, and that's what made

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what we do together so different,
but we understood the role

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that we were going to play.

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Sometimes, it's him handling the rhythm,
sometimes, it's me handling the rhythm.

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And for instance, this record,
I started off with the kick and the snare.

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I mean, other records like,
even "Promiscuous," I started off

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with the drums and some of the melody
meat of the track, but not to say

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that it was all one person
had one designated responsibility.

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It could be him just like,
we wrote the chord progression together

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for "Promiscuous," but rhythmically,
it was already what it was.

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We take records like "Give It To Me"
where he had...

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he had the drums going.

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I just came in, he would be in the booth
laying drums, I would be

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in the control room just with my keyboard.

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I remember one time, I'm just sitting on
the couch just playing while he's doing

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his thing, I'm laying track after track
while he's laying track after track,

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that's kind of where we formed Vegito.

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It was Goku and Vegeta, you synced up,
and we just understood each other,

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it was just a different language.

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And then, you have someone like Justin who
comes in who's a producer in his own right

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who can also lead you in the direction
he wants to go, and he has a whole

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different approach, especially when
it comes to drops and stuff like that.

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The way he do drops is a whole different,
he's looking at something else.

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He's looking at the stage, the lights,
him as a dancer, choreographer.

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His drop is based on how
his body is going to move.

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My drop is based on just how a musician,
or Tim's drop is just based on

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how a musician, or some weird thing.

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So, when you come together
and collectively, everybody has

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such a different perspective, that's what
made these things so different.

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That's the team, and that's what
we did and continue to do.

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Even on records like "Say Something",
we just kind of know

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what we expect out of each other.

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That's the role that we all play
and hold each other to that regard.

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So, synergy.

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There's nothing like synergy, man.

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When you see two, three,
four or more people sync together

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with the same common goal
and not in each other's way,

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this is a product of what you get.

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The great thing about, again,
working with someone like Justin

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is he's going to put you in a box.

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If he does decide to put you in a box,
it's a really, really big box,

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so your parameters aren't really limited.

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He just wanted his song dope.

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So as a creative, that allows you,
you're only limited by your imagination,

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and I have a very wild imagination
when it comes to music and making music.

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That's kind of how it was as the team,
everyone understands each other,

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and this is the product.