Nearly a year after filing a $28 million lawsuit and winning against Triller, the company they were in business with for Verzuz, Timbaland is gearing up for the return of the popular battle series.
In an exclusive interview with AllHipHop, the producer spoke about what’s ahead for the hip-hop audience as they have plans to bring back Verzuz.
After delighting fans with their initial Verzuz battle that pitted Timbaland’s work against his partner, Swizz Beatz, during the pandemic in 2020, the pair started a series that captured the hearts of music fans. After a dispute with Triller that resulted in a settlement that increased both producers’ share of the platform, there hasn’t been a Verzuz, and the public is clamoring for another. They may get their wish soon.
“Verzuz is still a baby,” Timbaland tells the media outlet. “It was something that was built in the pandemic that’s now a household name. Look how you saying it. Now we back open. To make it have the longevity that we need it to have, we have to reorganize the ship. We have to know how are we scaling up. We have to do things not how people used to us doing things.”
“With everything going on in the world, we have to convert back and really make this a real serious business model and a real serious thing, because I feel like Verzuz changes people’s lives. What me and Swizz have created, we have changed the lives of a lot of things and built up catalogs, so we have to really structure who we are and when we come back, what we stand for.”
One thing is certain, there WILL be another Verzuz before the end of 2023.
“Once you reintroduce a business that you built in front of people, it has to be somewhat nostalgic of what it was, but as it builds into what the future is going to be, you have to organize—and that’s what we’ve been doing,” he adds. “I believe that we’re gonna drop some good ones before the end of the year. We’re trying to get at least one good one before the end of the year to recalibrate what Verzuz is going to be in the future.”
In the meantime, Timbaland will be busy as he and his collaborator, Justin Timberlake, have been hired by ESPN to curate music for select Monday Night Football games during the 2023-24 NFL season. Timbaland and Timberlake’s songs will run in promotional spots, live telecasts, and pre-game shows for seven weeks this season.
