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Also, I think Timbaland qualifies, for sure. Yeah, he may produce a lot of pop and R&B, but so has Kanye, and so has Dilla!!! Also, it's worth mentioning that Timbaland helped bridge the gap between rap and R&B by bringing a hard, weird, uncompromising aesthetic to his R&B productions in the '90s.
Look at "Supa Dupa Fly" ... Missy may be more of a borderline R&B/pop artist than a straight rapper, but that song was fucking insane, and definitely more rap than R&B. It wouldn't have been shit without Timba.
And listening to "Are You That Somebody?" even today is a revelation. I didn't even know I liked R&B (beyond Badu and Fugees and shit) when I heard that. The production is totally whacked and fucking weird, and it goes hard as hell, but it came out in 1998... the year of Britney Spears! When R&B was supposed to mean "lightweight bullshit." It certainly was not lightweight bullshit. It's a fucking masterpiece.
Timba needs to be on the list. Maybe not in the top right or four, but certainly SOMEWHERE.
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