Timbaland, Verizon making mobile music together

By Jennifer Netherby

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Hitmaking hip-hop producer Timbaland ("Shock Value") has announced a deal with Verizon Wireless to make the first "mobile album," which will be exclusively available to subscribers of V Cast, Verizon's mobile entertainment service.

As Verizon's mobile producer in residence, Timbaland will produce one song per month throughout 2008. Each month, he will work with a different artist on a track while touring the country on the Verizon Mobile Recording Studio Bus, which will also capture making-of footage for V Cast subscribers on a dedicated Timbaland channel. He will perform in some tour cities to be announced, and Verizon will select subscribers to visit the tour bus in other cities to watch him work his magic.

Timbaland says the deal will let him reach more fans because "every place don't get a CD (but) everybody has a mobile phone."

Plus, there's history to be made. "Just producing a mobile album has never been done. I'm the first to ever do it," he says.

Major artists have of late left major labels in bids to reach fans in new ways, but Timbaland isn't leaving Interscope, which put out the album "Shock Value" and distributes his Mosley Music imprint.

Interscope is involved in the Verizon deal from the standpoint that Timbaland plans to work with the label's artists for the mobile-only tracks. Whether a mobile album deal could replace a major-label deal in the future, "that's something we'll have to see," Timbaland says.

NEW DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL

For Verizon, the deal is a "marriage of promotional opportunity and a large distribution platform," director of digital music Ed Ruth says. "Our goal is to show the music industry that we're truly a viable distribution platform for them."