The most sought-after producer in pop music is not looking happy. Tim “Timbaland” Mosley, dressed in a sharp suit and tie, is ready for the first of tonight’s many close-ups. But instead of readying himself to be snapped leaving a London studio with Madonna, or caught on stage with Justin Timberlake, the 36-year-old Mosley is in Manchester, deep in the bowels of a car park improvised out of crumbling Victorian railway arches, where water drips down the walls and on to the filthy, oil-spattered floor.

The contrast between his present surroundings and the polished sheen of his quirky, futuristic music is marked. And the location for this video shoot – squeezed into his diary as he dashes around the world as part of Timberlake’s tour – has presumably been chosen for this reason.

The director fusses over camera angles and lighting set-ups as Timbaland’s latest protégée, the singer Keri Hilson, teeters across the cobblestones in a tight leather dress. Mosley, suffering from a bout of flu, seems stiff and awkward: between snuffles and grunts he looks like a mildly grumpy bulldog.

“Your health is more important than everything else,” he says, struggling through the symptoms. “I fly private so I can stick to one aircraft rather than have to sit with a bunch of people coughing and sneezing: that way I know what I’m dealing with. But you can’t get better if you don’t rest, and I’ve been going constantly, nonstop.”

The irony is lost on him as he pushes himself through the ardours of the allnight video shoot. And yet, as he acts out his guy-chasing-girl routine with the glamorously disdainful Hilson and mimes to the same first verse of his next single, The Way I Are, he begins to look as though he might just be enjoying himself.

Although lauded as one of the greatest backroom men in contemporary music, Mosley has long lusted after a place in the spotlight. Alongside a string of sonically adventurous and commercially successful records with the likes of Timberlake, Jay-Z, the late Aaliyah, Missy Elliott and, more recently, Nelly Furtado and Björk, Mosley has made albums under his own name. The most recent, Timbaland Presents Shock Value, from this year, is his fifth and has brought him closer than ever before to the fame of the artists he has helped to become stars. Yet, now that he is here, he seems to be having second thoughts.

The term “solo” is a relative concept: the album’s 19 tracks feature 28 guest spots by 21 artists, among them Elton John, the Hives and 50 Cent, and the results are at best variable. For every daring leap into the sonic unknown there are instances of apparent confusion or lack of inspiration.

It is a largely fruitless endeavour to ask him about how and why the music he makes is so different from anything else around. Mosley has little interest in either explaining his craft or in understanding it, as if believing that analysis will kill spontaneity and cancel out the intuitive spark of genius.

“I just do music,” he shrugs, dismissing another theory. “It can easily get stale, so I’m always creating, innovating new stuff. I don’t get into it that deep, I just do whatever I feel: it’s real simple.”

He is also unforthcoming about the sessions he has been conducting in London for Madonna’s next album, conceding that Justin Timberlake may have been involved, and saying of the work done so far: “I love it”. So it is at first a surprise when he begins to explain that he feels something of a split in his personality, between the side that likes the slower pace of the background, and the other that craves attention and fame – but less so that he couches it in a muddled cinematic metaphor.

“Oh, I could be the man! You saw me out there,” he jabbers, nodding to the floodlit area under the arches where Hilson is now shooting some solo spots. “I’m two different people. You saw Thomas Crown in full effect! Ricky Bobby, basically,” he splutters, switching suddenly from a comparison with Steve McQueen’s suave criminal mastermind to Will Ferrell’s dopey Nascar driver. “I gotta be on the move!”

All this chopping and changing personas, and crafting music for Alist artists who are always demanding something a few steps ahead of today’s trends, seems to be taking its toll.

“I don’t need to do anything for money,” Mosley says. “I’m just glad to have a job. But music is boring right now. I’m too innovative for the world. I’ve been doing it so long, I’m about to throw in the towel.” He arches his right eyebrow, checking to see if this titbit has hit its intended target.

“I’m about to decrown myself and pass it over to one of the up-and-coming producers under me,” he continues. “They won’t be able to be me – there’s only one Timbaland – but there’s a certain sound that I try to teach.”

And then he’s off again, talking about producing some tracks for the rock band One Republic, the flu – and thoughts of retirement – seemingly cast aside in the rush to enthuse. “I just wanna make people happy,” he says, finally allowing the tiniest glimpse at the source of his motivation. “I like doing shows, entertaining people. I can’t make ’em happy – I’m not God, and only God can control your emotions and your moods. I just like to be a part of their mood swings: that’s what I like, and that’s why I love my music.”

And with that he’s whisked away, back into the spotlight, looking a little less gruff and a little more at home, and with what may be a hint of a smile peeking from beneath that flu-ridden scowl.

— The Way I Are is released on Mosley Music/Blackground/ Interscope on July 23; Timbaland appears at the O2 Arena, London SE10, on July 4, 5, 7, 8 and 10 with Justin Timberlake

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