Rick Rubin

Rick Rubin
Landmark work Run DMC, Raising Hell; Johnny Cash, American Recordings
Highly anticipating upcoming release Metallica’s next album, as yet unnamed
Wrestling name Sasquatch!
The attempt to identify a Rick Rubin sound quickly involves one in Zen-like complications. He made LL Cool J sound like LL Cool J, and Slayer sound like Slayer. Johnny Cash, trembling with age, laid the flesh of his voice over skeletal acoustic arrangements and summoned his own forgotten essence. So is that what Rick Rubin does? Simply wave his hand and grant these artists permission to be themselves, in all their barbarous originality? Not quite. A sonic polymath he may be (who else could work with Danzig and the Dixie Chicks?), but the important thing about Frederick Jay Rubin is his deep-down beardie-weirdie metalheadedness. As a metalhead, he is a bigot for the riff. As a metalhead, he can’t even hear a song unless it locks together like a line of 17th-century verse. As a metalhead, he likes the good bits, the rockin’ bits — he likes his music fat-free, as it were. And as a metalhead, he has a monkish affinity for detail. From the apocalyptic clang of Dave Lombardo’s ride cymbal on Slayer’s Reign in Blood (1986) to the wheezy harmonium of Neil Diamond’s 12 Songs (2005), a single aesthetic has prevailed: every part of the whole must be kicking ass, at all times.
— James Parker

Swizz Beatz

Swizz Beatz
Landmark work Beyoncé, “Upgrade U”; Jay-Z, “Money, Cash, Hoes”
Highly anticipating upcoming release singles by Madonna, Britney Spears, Ja Rule, and Mary J. Blige
Wrestling name Earthquake!
This Ruff Ryder’s best ’90s beats were hard, minimal, and synthesized on the cheap at a time when — both sonically and culturally — hip-hop lived large off lush, sample-heavy soul-funk productions. I remember in high school hearing “Money, Cash, Hoes” the first time — that ringtone of a beat — and wondering aloud whether it was just Jay-Z shilling for a cell-phone provider. Then, seven years later, rap followed Swizz’s cue, going stark minimal, and now almost every beat sounds like a ringtone. By then, Swizz had moved on. His latest boom-bap trades in fat industrial-strength kicks and clangs, his songs often composed of multiple, unrelated movements stitched together one after the other — Busta’s “Touch It” probably the best example, Swizz’s own “It’s Me Bitches” a close second, T.I.’s “Bring ’Em Out” and “Get It” at third and fourth. He’s had plenty of misfires — just two months ago Swizz released One Man Band Man, his first solo LP and ill-advised emcee debut — but when he hits hard, the ground tends to shake.
— Nick Sylvester

Timbaland

Timbaland
Landmark work Missy Elliott, Under Construction; singles by Björk, Aaliyah, Justin Timberlake, and Jay-Z
Highly anticipating upcoming release Eve’s Here I Am
Wrestling name Sweet Potato!
I’m watching old Missy videos on YouTube right now, the one for “Work It,” before that the one for “Get Ur Freak On.” What strikes me isn’t Timbaland’s stuttering drum patches, or the way he used space like a hip-hop Miles Davis, or the thefted Eastern music accouterments, but the indisputable fact that mainstream rap will never be the fuck-it-all free-for-all it was even five years ago. More than any one thing sonically, what defines the “Timbaland sound” is his implicit belief that anything can, and should, go into hip-hop/r&b. Which might be why his work with Missy stands out, even next to solids for (among others) Justin Timberlake, Aaliyah, and Jay-Z: here were two telepathic weirdos from Norfolk, Virginia, one a sexually ambiguous, overweight black female rapper, the other a cheesy beatmaker with a penchant for bad ad-libs, cartoonish sound effects, and vocoders, bragging they’re the baddest in the game, blindsiding both their peers and the public with the unfamiliar and uncompromised. Somehow everyone loved it. What?!
— Nick Sylvester

Pharrell Williams

Pharrell Williams
Landmark work Nelly, “Hot in Herre”; Kelis, “Milkshake”; Snoop Dogg, “Drop It Like It’s Hot”
Ass-kicking recent release Jay-Z, “Blue Magic”
Wrestling name Elektro!
If Pharrell Williams’s legacy winds up being that of the man who unleashed “The New Justin Timberlake” upon the world, it’ll be apropos: over the past 10 years, no producer’s beats have bestowed more insta-cred than the Neptunes’ spacey synths. He and partner Chad Hugo’s sparse, futuristic Star Trak sound has spawned a thousand imitators — including, no joke, the Trak Starz — but there’s no Korg Triton that can duplicate Pharrell’s inexplicably charming off-key falsetto. Williams has become the ultimate pop shape shifter, splashing bongos on a Rolling Stones remix one minute, making ’hood anthems with Clipse the next, all the while looking like an actual alien with a fetish for colorful Japanese street wear and dookie chains that Mr. T would find excessive. Sure, plenty of producers could’ve gone to number one with a still-kinda-hot 2001 Britney Spears, but this guy managed a hit single out of 1999 ODB, not to mention launching Kelis’s career and revitalizing a post–No Limit Snoop. Though he proved himself fallible this past year with a dud of a solo album, Williams seems to have stockpiled enough cool points to last him ’til the rapture. How else could he get away with a nickname like Skateboard P?
— Chris Nelson