The New King of Pop

His position as the biggest pop star of 2003 is not uncontested -- 50 Cent sold more albums and Clay Aiken generated more cultish hysteria -- but Timberlake was the man of the year for a more substantive reason: This was his time to prove he's not just a boy-band star, not just Britney Spears' ex-boyfriend or Cameron Diaz's current boyfriend, not just a hunky white boy emulating Michael Jackson. During the tour with Aguilera, he played late-night aftershows at small venues, just him and his band -- no glitzy props or choreography, just a good old-fashioned rock show. Instead of running with bubblegum pop stars, he hangs out with the Neptunes, John Mayer, Black Eyed Peas, Coldplay's Chris Martin and even the Strokes. Somewhere along the way, Timberlake attained the one thing most pop stars don't, and the one thing he wanted more than anything else: credibility.

"It's a liberating thing to walk out onstage and see people your age and up," he says when we sit down alone together over beers two weeks later in New York. "And they're not screaming just because you're standing there, they're screaming because you did something to impress them. They don't put your poster on their wall -- they just like your record." Timberlake is dressed, casually, in what is either a vintage T-shirt or a very good facsimile thereof, a brown polyester Pony sweat jacket, jeans and sneakers. His newly shorn hair is barely an inch long, and he has grown a bit of a goatee since I saw him in Memphis.

"I know people have an image of me in their head, but I want them to be able to see past that," he says. "I want them to see the musicality of what I'm doing. There's a portion of people who enjoy what I do. And it's been proven. There's a weight lifted off my shoulders. I don't have to worry about that part anymore."