An early frontrunner for Best New Artist of 2008, singer/ songwriter Keri Hilson has been bubbling under-the-radar for quite some time but in 2007 she really started to get people talking with a string of high-profile collaborations. On top of writing credits for Pussycat Dolls' "Wait A Minute", Omarion's "Ice Box" and Britney Spears' "Gimme More", she was the standout star of Timbaland Presents Shock Value, breaking out on her own with her robo-ethereal contribution to it's still-lingering smash "The Way I Are".

Hilson's "Headsprung" is actually an old answer record she recorded back around the release of LL's Timbo-produced cut of the same name, but it's just now getting the HQ treatment and word is, it could be found on her upcoming debut, In A Perfect World. Atop the exact same electro-funk playground of LL's original, Keri offers the female perspective to being fly in the club. Her newly done hair and nails are fierce and her self-confidence is exploding through the roof ("Know how to make a man pop champagne/ Know how to make a man say my name/ Know how to make a man play my game/ Make 'em all wonder how I got my thang").

Justin Timberlake holds down the second verse, his vision disoriented from the amount of alcohol he's consumed and the multitude of asses shaking at various speeds around him. "Forget the champagne, throw me a Bud"/ You tryin' to get a country boy messed up," he speak-sings, sounding like a giddy rookie enjoying his first night out as a twenty-one year old.

Beat-heavy songs like these tend to position the performer as a supporting feature on their own cut, and Timbaland's thump is so deliriously poly-rhythmic LL Cool J needn't have even bothered writing verses. But Hilson, a noted vocal arranger, refuses to be drowned out by the swirling sonics. She adds to the track sexy harmonic layers and soulful ad-libs that challenge the mechanical construction with a little human warmth.

If Hilson can do this to a track that's technically not hers, just think of the possibilities when, for her own album, she's involved in the song-making process from it's infancy. With that in mind, it's no question that In A Perfect World seems pre-destined to birth a major star for the new year.

DL: "Headsprung" (YFH)