Timbaland has built a whole legacy on one instinct: if everyone expects you to do the obvious, do the opposite and make it undeniable.
After all, he is the producer who taught pop culture to hear rhythm in unexpected things like crickets, birds, and yes, even a baby crying. (If you know, you know.)
Babybel, the iconic red wax-wrapped cheese brand, is a French brand inspired by Dutch Edam, which was started with Jules Bel’s cheese trade in the 1860s. By 1977, the tiny poppers had revolutionized convenient snacking and become a global hit.
Timbaland boasts 4 Grammy Awards for megahits like “SexyBack,” “LoveStoned,” and “Drunk in Love”, plus more than 20 more nominations and a host of other accolades to his name.
When two giants in their respective industries come together, surely they can take something small and make it big.
When Babybel came calling with an idea that could’ve easily been written off as novelty, Timbaland didn’t treat it like a quirky brand stunt. He treated it like an opening to spotlight what we’re losing in the all-digital era, and what we need to bring back.
“We have to give tangible things again before it gets lost in the sauce,” Timbaland told TheGrio in an exclusive interview. “Don’t get me wrong — I’m a tech geek. But I also understand what I come from, and that’s hardware.”
That tension between the future and what we’re losing along the way is exactly what makes Timbaland’s latest move feel like more than a commercial remix.
“I always like to do something out of the norm, and I just thought, like the word ‘wax’ stood out to me,” he said. “When they kept emphasizing the word wax, I was like, ‘Well, how were records first made?’ On wax.”
This collaboration, called Mini Wax Tracks, reimagines the brand’s longstanding jingle “I’m Your Baby” in two exclusive versions and puts them onto collectible mini vinyl records.
That’s the kind of left-field connection only Timbaland could make sound inevitable: snack culture meets vinyl culture.
And it didn’t hurt that the product itself already fit into his day-to-day.
“Well, for one, I like cheese for the protein aspects of it,” he said. “I mix it with my salads and everything. Babybel was one of my favorites back in the day, too.”
When I asked what felt creatively aligned about the collaboration, he said the original jingle made him feel something.
“When I heard the original… ‘it’s catchy,’” he told me. “And I thought about commercials today. To me, we don’t really have those catchy commercials. The last time we had a catchy jingle was when I was a kid.” The 2024 Songwriter Hall of Fame inductee went on to sing the “School House Rock” song: “‘Conjunction junction, what’s your function.’” He added, “‘I’m your Babybel’ kind of sounded like “Conjunction Junction,” so I was like, let me put my touch on this.”
That touch became a limited‑edition drop featuring two remixes, one pop and one EDM, pressed onto 3‑inch vinyl. The bite‑sized nature of Babybel makes it the perfect snack, just like the remixed tracks by Timbaland. But the deeper story is about tangibility in a digital era.
He talked about wanting to jump out of the box, and this remix ensures his legacy will “be a part of history going forward.”
Even after 200 ASCAP songwriter awards, he’s still interested in making moments people remember, especially the ones no one expects from him.
That’s also why the “jingle” lane doesn’t feel small to him. When I mentioned how Luther Vandross got his start by writing a jingle for a New York pizzeria, Timbaland treated it like proof.
“When I started doing my history of how many culturally [relevant] artists have done great jingles, he was one of them,” he said.
Timbaland didn’t frame the mini vinyl drop as a cute collectible for collectors. He framed it like a reminder.
“To me, it’s always understanding the history of how everything once was,” he said. “Vinyl was the biggest thing in my career. That’s how I started off, as a DJ, spinning vinyl.”
He even made the “mini” part feel like a history lesson, connecting it to the 45s a lot of younger music fans have never touched.
“Mini vinyl, to me, means 45,” he said. “That was the small vinyl with the big hole in the middle, I told my son, and he was like, ‘Oh snap, this is so cool,’ because they don’t know this stuff.”
For Timbaland, the point isn’t to turn back the clock. It’s to stop acting like the clock ever existed.
“As we get forward into technology, we always have to go back to the essence,” he said. “I’LL never forget where I come from when it comes to hardware and stuff that was tangible.”
If you’ve been following Timbaland’s recent moves, you already know his name sits in the middle of the music industry’s AI debate. In our conversation, he called it a tool.
“Here’s the thing about it,” he told me. “It still takes you as a human to control it. I think that’s the misconception, that you just prompt it.”
Then he explained what makes it valuable to him: AI doesn’t replace his knowledge—it gives him a faster way to use it.
“All the knowledge that I know of music and everything of tech, I can talk to it, and it can give me back what I know,” he said.
He described using it in producer terms. Something that helps translate the sound he hears in his head into a rough version he can build from.
“I look at it as a sample tool,” he explained, describing how he might sing a melody and ask the tool to flip it into a specific musical texture: “Hey, can you change this into a guitar with oriental string sound?”
To Timbaland, AI is the beginning of the process, not the end.
“Now I can direct my own choir and then go get the real choir to really sing it,” he said. “It’s like a demo. I look at AI as like a pitch demo to do other things with great humans.”
But he also drew a clear line around priorities.
“I’m never going to neglect the human elements and put the machine first. I think we can combine as one.”
In Timbaland’s mind, the technology doesn’t define the art. The artist still does.
And when the conversation turned to pushback from musicians, he offered one of his most provocative takes:
“I think AI exposes mediocrity,” he said.
He acknowledged the fear and the potential for harm, but framed it like another competitor in a long line of industry disruptors, something artists will have to outgrow, outcreate, and outwork.
Even with all that enthusiasm about what AI can unlock, Timbaland paused long enough to make one thing clear about this specific project.
“Okay, let me just say this,” he said. “For this commercial, no AI was used. It was all about organic and original.”
That distinction isn’t a contradiction. It’s the point.
Timbaland isn’t choosing a side between past and future; he’s insisting both still matter.
Fans can preview the remixes and enter for a chance to win a limited-edition mini vinyl set (including a matching mini turntable) from Jan. 21 through Feb. 6, at miniwaxtracks.com.
The full remixes are available on major streaming platforms starting today, Jan. 23, at 12:00 a.m. ET, including Spotify, Apple, and Amazon Music, plus social libraries like Meta and TikTok.
It’s easy to call this “Timbaland remixed a cheese jingle,” but what he’s really saying is that music can’t be all cloud and convenience. Creativity can’t be all shortcuts. And innovation doesn’t mean we stop honoring the essence of how we got here.
For Timbaland, Mini Wax Tracks isn’t a detour from his legacy. It’s proof that he’s still building it, in real time, and he’s doing it the same way he always has, by finding culture in the strange places and leaving his mark on it.
