Bubba Sparxxx: Dark Days, Bright Nights

Since revolutionizing hip-hop production with his work on Missy Elliott's 1997 debut Supa Dupa Fly, Timbaland has attained a remarkable level of critical and commercial success, rapidly ascending to the realm of all-world producers like Dr. Dre and DJ Premier. Equally beloved by Cristal-guzzling party people and the avant-garde, Timbaland rose to new heights this year, producing Elliott's terrific Miss E… So Addictive, helping catapult Petey Pablo to stardom, and wracking up production credits (Aaliyah's "We Need A Resolution," Bubba Sparxxx's "Ugly," Elliott's "Get Ur Freak On," Jay-Z's "Hola Hovito") that read like a list of 2001's best singles. If that weren't enough, Timbaland somehow also found time to launch a label, Beat Club, and produce much of its striking first release, Sparxxx's Dark Days, Bright Nights. Serving as Eminem to Timbaland's Dr. Dre, Sparxxx has a Caucasoid heritage and country-fried shtick that are both fairly novel. But like Eminem, Sparxxx is too smart and talented to be written off as a novelty act or a cynical attempt to woo mainstream America with yet another great white hope. Dark Days, Bright Nights doesn't exactly downplay Sparxxx's redneck tendencies (on "Bubba Talk," Timbaland sneaks barnyard animal noises into the mix), but it doesn't play them up, either. Sparxxx's major-label debut contains its share of cartoonish moments, but as with Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP, Days exhibits a bracing undercurrent of working-class resentment, as well as a sense of exuberance in life's possibilities, tempered by a foreboding feel for its unavoidable pitfalls and essential brevity. Timbaland's snaky, deceptively sophisticated, and pop-savvy production adds to Days' rough-hewn Southern charm, but even without the stamp of authenticity conferred by Timbaland's participation, the album would be an auspicious debut from a hip-hop original. The second joint release from Timbaland and little-loved sidekick Magoo, Indecent Proposal unsurprisingly functions far more effectively as a showcase for the producer's mind-boggling production prowess than as a forum for Magoo's Q-Tip-meets-Urkel flow and questionable lyrical skills. Still, while Timbaland is Indecent Proposal's star, Magoo isn't nearly the Shaq-level wackness conduit his detractors make him out to be. Timbaland and Magoo's playboy fantasies are no more inspired than Jermaine Dupri's obnoxious flossing, but Timbaland's production genius and trippy invention make it easy to overlook the album's lack of profundity. During Indecent Proposal's many moments of sonic brilliance, Magoo's faults as a lyricist seem irrelevant. It's only when Timbaland stumbles that those shortcomings become apparent, as on "Beat Club," a dark, tough-talking slice of ultra-violent misanthropy which confirms that Magoo's tormented soul is most assuredly not worth visiting. But the producer's musical imagination remains one of hip-hop's most rewarding destinations, and Indecent Proposal finds the champion beatsmith working at top form, evolving in countless new directions at once. "Indian Garden," "All Y'all," and "People Like Myself" mine Timbaland's flair for world-music exoticism with terrific results, while his endearingly goofy rhyming continues to improve. One of the most impressive producer's albums since Dr. Dre 2001, Indecent Proposal serves as a fitting topper to the most notable year of Timbaland's brief but brilliant career.