Source: Conplex • 4/26/23

“Timbaland has revealed one of his biggest hit records, Aaliyah’s “Try Again,” was made by mistake.

During his sit-down conversation with the I AM Hip-Hop podcast, Timbo explained how playing around with his keyboard led to creating the hit 2001 record, which served as a bonus track off Aaliyah’s self-titled third and final album. It was also released as the lead single off the soundtrack to the 2000 film Romeo Must Die.

“I was playing with the keyboard and it was a mistake, and my engineer Jimmy Douglass caught it,” he said. “I said ‘Jimmy did you catch that lil rhythm?’ [and] he said ‘I sure did. So [after] he caught it and played it back, I put the beat on it. I said ‘Ooo chop it right there,’ and he chopped it right there.’”

The Virginia native also revealed the late Static Major wrote Aaliyah’s verse and that Jay-Z told him the record was a hit. However, it took Timbo some convincing as he wasn’t sure of the track’s success at the time. 

“When Jay-Z came in the studio he was like ‘Oh my God,’ and then I was like, ‘yeah we got one,’” Timbaland said.

Timbaland surely did have “one” with the song as it rose to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the first track to do so strictly off airplay as it wasn’t commercially released in the United States. It also peaked at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 Airplay, No. 3 on the Mainstream Top 40 and No. 4 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts.

If that weren’t enough, “Try Again” was also nominated for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards, and the accompanying Wayne Isham-directed music video won two MTV Video Music Awards in 2000.”

Full interview below.