XXL.com's Top 10 Producers of 2007..

10) Ski- produced Camp Lo’s soon to be classic 3rd LP, Black Hollywood, and gave “Girls Kiss Girls” enough pulsating techno pop to blast white rapper Pittsburgh Slim into the homes of spring breaking white girls nationwide

9) Scott Storch- produced the universally-loved Papoose single “Bang It Out,” which was so hot that Pap had to leave the pop factory, Jive Records, for greener pastures; beefed, dissed, and ethered his former protege Timbaland, who then went on record in a Scratch Mag interview and said he still hangs out with the guy. Dear Mr. Piano Man, I’m your biggest fan, sincerely Mr. Tim-ber-land.

8) R Kelly- drops his album Double Up, which apparently every producer in the entire music industry worked on, then jacks everyone except like 2 people for their production credit because that’s just how The Rrrrrrr gets down. Didn’t The Runners produce like every song on this fucking album?

7) 7 Aurelius/Channel 7 or whatever the hell he calls himself now, and Irv Gotti- you can’t tell me that Ja Rule record, “Body” isn’t the hottest career comeback record evar. It was so hot that more people watched Irv Gotti’s VH1 show to hear him talk about the record than actually listened it.

6) Jermaine Dupri- gives Fabolous one the biggest fake hits of his career with “Baby Don’t Go” which he actually made back in something like 1994 for Whodini. Reselling beats and getting paid twice, that’s why Jermaine is the uber exec. What, you thought the music biz was about making music? It’s about checks. Cha-ching! Throw in that Paul Wall hit “I’m Throwed,” and you see JD was on top of his game.

5) Three 6 Mafia- produced the #1 ringtone, “Don’t Call Me No Mo” for Project Pat, as well as his whole album Walkin Bank Roll. Also dropped something like 15 incredible singles from their still unreleased new album Last 2 Walk and acted like great ambassadors for hip-hop culture in front of a national audience on their weekly MTV show Adventures In Hollyhood.

4) Soulja Boy- this kid is like 16 years old, obviously can’t play a lick, but produced the most infectious single of the year. Now I know everyone here hates this kid more than Bin Laden, but is it because you really don’t like his music, or because you’re sitting in your bedroom trying to hard while he’s getting rich off some bullsh*t?

3) The Neptunes- Admit it, that Twista single, “Give It Up,” was so hot that Twista got dropped from Atlantic Records because of it. Besides that, Skateboard P was busy opening up BBC stores in Soho and doing all sorts of cool shit producers do when they’re so rich they don’t even need to give a fuck about music anymore.

2) Lil Jon- outside of doing some random production on Pitbull’s new album, Jon spent the whole year working on Crunk Rock. Which is dope, because he spared us his repetitive 2-note beats being on the radio every 3 seconds. So he makes it to #2 just by not doing anything.

1) The Rza- Bob Digital hit his creative high point with Wu-Tang Clan’s 8 Diagrams. It’s unfortunate, however, that his Wu-brethren didn’t see things the same way and then went on to dis him damn near everywhere they could. Meanwhile, nobody in that crew outside of Ghostface can sell more than a thousand records on their own, so instead of bitching, they should have embraced their “Inner Digi” and rocked that Beatles shit harder than Paul McCartney.

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