Timbaland Talks Justin Timberlake’s ‘Justified’ 20 Years After Its Release: ‘I’m a Part of History’

The legendary producer opens up to PEOPLE about helping craft a debut album that launched the *NSYNC star to solo stardom

PHOTO: L. BUSACCA/WIREIMAGE

Timbaland sees the color blue when he makes music. Specifically, a sky blue.

That color, which the legendary, Grammy-winning musician says he envisions in his head upon hearing his own production, got even brighter the first time Justin Timberlake sang over one of his beats in 2002, laying down vocals for what would become his debut studio album, Justified.

“When he goes on to sing that first note, blue just gets bright. It’s like sunshine,” Timbaland, 50, tells PEOPLE two decades after the release of Timberlake’s breakthrough solo project. “I introduced him to a sound. And he introduced me to a sound: His tone on top of my music, which allowed my product to shine. It made it like a complete marriage. The music is dope, but both of us together, when you say you need each other, that was it. And you heard it.”

November marks 20 years since Timberlake released Justified. The album has gone on to sell well-over 10 million copies worldwide, and it marked Timberlake’s first full-length venture apart from *NSYNC as the boy band entered a hiatus following their last release as a five-piece, 2001’s Celebrity. From there, a partnership with Timbaland was formed.

JT’s ears were glued to the sounds of Virginia in 2002, specifically those of Timbaland and production duo The Neptunes (Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo). After sessions with both acts, the resulting LP was essentially half-produced by The Neptunes and half-produced by Timbaland, real name Timothy Zachery Mosley, who manned Timberlake’s No. 3 charting smash “Cry Me a River.”

“[That song] was the one that solidified, ‘Oh, we gonna do more, we gotta go back and finish the other album,'” says Timbaland, who went on to produce the near-entirety of 2006’s FutureSex/Lovesounds. “It was the end of the project, and it was like, ‘Now we gotta take it there.'”

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Justified took Timberlake and his collaborator to the Grammys in 2003, where the record won best pop vocal album and “Cry Me a River” earned best male pop vocal performance. It also brought Timbaland’s sound into the lives of a handful of soon-to-be music giants — the song was one of the first that Justin Bieber covered on YouTube in the late ’00s, while Tyler, the Creator shared last week that receiving the album for Christmas in 2002 was “one of the greatest moments of my life.”

Since its release, Justified has since sold well over 10 million copies — and beyond that, really shined a light on a young star who was finding his footing as a soloist. Did it feel like, at the time, you were forming a partnership with Justin, or did it feel like you were just going to work on those four songs?

Back then, it was about going to the studio and creating the chemistry. The chemistry was made as soon as we worked from song one. I knew I had chemistry with him. Back then, it was talent, but to find those super special ones to come in that room… that’s the only way you got in the room, because you had to be special. But sometimes everybody’s chemistry don’t mix because each person is special. They special in their own right, but coming together is a different thing.

Justin said in an interview back then that you would come in the studio, make a beat for 15 minutes, then unplug your headphones from the sequencer and play it for him before leaving him alone for a few hours to create. Were you surprised when you came back to see the ideas he’d put together?

It was everything that I could imagine how it would sound. I always have this color in my head when I do music. It always felt sky blue. I didn’t know how he would sound, but when I see him and I put my music beside him, the color I see was blue. Blue, to me, is very raw, very cheery. That’s why everybody likes sunny days because they’ve got blue skies, right? It was everything that I could imagine. The color blue was real. It wasn’t a figment of my imagination when I’d play my music and he’d give that little gesture, like, “Oh, I got this baby, I got this.”

JIM SMEAL/RON GALELLA COLLECTION VIA GETTY

This album is half you, half the Neptunes. Do you remember hearing these songs together for the first time?

Justin had worked with Pharrell first. For me, it was about a VA thing. I knew VA boys was gonna give that boy what he needed. And it was cool to have Justin Timberlake from *NSYNC just in the facility, because I knew what Pharrell could contribute. And he just knew, like, “These are the guys to produce my record.” And look how it turned out. I looked at it as like, that boy came down to VA to get that VA sauce. He knew that was the chemistry of what we was building. Because he kept to that same movement.

Could you feel the impact of “Cry Me a River” when you both were making it?

We was already in the rhythm. I was already in a flow back then. So it’s like, I knew the track was already bangin’, and when he heard it, it was gonna light a fire in him. He had just come from a concert, he was already in this mood of anxiousness, ready to do something. We walked in the room. He heard that. It just hit him. It was crazy.

Do you have a favorite memory from the studio working on this record?

Just being guys who love music and love the way it makes us feel. Every time was a memory. We don’t work together often. He is an artist so he works on the road, he’s got a life. Every time we come together is special. We just making great music, feeding our souls. That fix you get, you’re just feeding your soul with what you love, and you’re around people who love the same thing.

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Justified was monumental in a lot of artists’s careers — I know Justin Bieber got his start covering “Cry Me a River,” and Tyler, the Creator just tweeted about how much that album meant to him. How much pride do you take in knowing this album continues to have that type of impact after two decades?

It’s an honor, it’s a blessing. For me, it lets me know that what I wanted the world to hear, they heard, which was my sound — uniqueness. It was me talking without talking. I don’t really do a lot of interviews, I don’t speak. But I talk through my music, [which] can let you know what my personality is. Genuine, rich, thoughtful, sharp. With words — school wasn’t my thing with certain things, but I just knew I had a gift. And to know that the world accepted my gift and picked out everything about me to give me this identification of who I am… It was a blessing for the world to pick out, “Aw man you heard this beat,” “Aw man, this sound.” That’s all I ever wanted, was people to pick out everything about the music.

What does it mean to you today?

It means that I’m a part of history. I have written my part of history in this memoir of life that I think will always be remembered. I think that’s really what everybody’s dream is. To leave something on this earth that touches you in a great way. Music is the best thing to bring back memories. To know that I’m a memory in a lot of people’s minds, at least good memories, so when they hear my music it makes them smile. When I look back at it, I think that was the whole plan, to be remembered.