”It’s an RnB-pop-dance record, but it’s still Madonna”

Justin Timberlake was interviewed in today’s Hollywood Daily People issue. They of course asked him a few questions about working with Madonna and here’s what he had to say:

You worked on Madonna’s new album with Timbaland. In what direction did you take her?
Basically, our job was to reinvent her sound. My thing was producing her vocals – really experimenting with rhythm. Everything she does with rhythm is straightforward. What I do is more staccato and R&B. So the challenge for me was writing songs, then saying, “How can I make this sound more like Madonna?” I’m a big fan of her first album. So my mission was to write a modern-day “Holiday.” I wrote a cool house record for her called “Miles Away” that I think is a smash! She sounds great on it.

So is it an R&B Madonna?
It’s an R&B/pop/dance record, but it´s still Madonna. Her voice still sounds like she’s 18 year old! It trips me out that she’s 49. She´s always been rough and tough. Her last couple of records, she’s like, “Rrrrrrr!”

How did she react to your ideas?
A couple of times I pushed her in a direction where it took a minute before we saw eye to eye. Her approach was, “Well, I just haven’t done that.” And I was like, “Yeah, that´s why you should do it.”

So did you teach Madonna how to beatbox?
[Laughs] No, no. We left that to me and Tim.