At the age of eighteen, Nate “Danja” Hills had one objective — usurp the throne from an industry-leading super-producer named Timbaland. After a chance encounter, Danja moved into a spare room in Timbaland’s Miami home, where the two would work together for the next two years.

Nate Hills is another product of the thriving Virginia Beach hip-hop community. He started teaching himself how to play a keyboard at the age of nine, and soon after started playing the drums. He would play music every Sunday at the church where his father was a pastor, leading the choir on his keyboard. He bought a Casio console when he was in high school, and started to learn how to make beats. Danja landed his first production credit by working on a song by Blackstreet, an R&B band that featured Teddy Riley, a Virginia Beach local hero.

Danja met Timbaland for the first time at a music conference in 2001, but the two didn’t have a working relationship until several years later. At that time, Hills had his sites set on Timbaland, hoping to one day take his spot as the leading producer in hip-hop. When Danja got the chance to play Timbaland a CD of his beats in 2003, Timbaland wanted Danja on his team. Six months later, he was living in a spare room in Timbaland’s Miami home, and the two were working together on music daily.

Together, Danja and Timbaland worked on songs by Lloyd Banks, Justin Timberlake, and Nelly Furtado, crafting a heavily synthesized quirky electronic sound that stormed the music world in the mid 2000s. Despite becoming the most sought-after production team in hip-hop, they no longer work together due to personal issues.

After distancing himself from Timbaland, Danja was able to build a body of work for himself, which arguably eclipses his collaborations with Timbaland. His style is not dissimilar to Timbo’s, but if anything, it’s more focussed, and more melodically driven. Let’s check out some of Danja’s best solo work for this edition of Friday Mixtape.