Swizz Beatz is in album mode.
Fresh off a battle with Timbaland at Hot97’s Summer Jam (which may turn into a tour), the super producer spoke with Pitchfork about his forthcoming release, Poison.
“Everything is poison,” Swizz says. “You look at the times we live in, you look at everything, and in order to get past that, you have to address that. You can’t just skip over it.”
Over a decade in the making, the follow-up to 2007’s One Man Band Man is due out this summer and the guest list is rather impressive. According to Swizz, we can expect contributions from Kendrick Lamar, Lil Wayne, Pusha T, Nas, The LOX, Young Thug, 2 Chainz, Jim Jones, and a few more.
Mimicking what he said in December about delivering “straight raw and uncut,” Swizz promises nothing but DOPE on his next album. “I took all the hits off my record, meaning anything that felt too big that the rest of the record wouldn’t live,” he told Pitchforck about cutting tracks with Kanye, Bono (U2) and Bruno Mars. “It’s just not that record. It might be on my next record, but this particular record I wanted to occupy the ground floor, which I came from, polish that, and then let people come with me to the middle of the building or the penthouse or the roof, and then just start everything over again.”
Oh, and that Nas feature? It was actually a part of a full-length project that he and Swizz recorded two years ago.
“I did his album two years ago in one week in L.A.,” Swizz revealed. “In the studio every day at 12 o’clock, just bang bang bang. Recorded the whole thing, got it all on film. It was an ill process. Super crazy, maniac shit.”
So, instead of that… we got NASIR. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Anyways, on top of Poison, Swizz also has plans to release a few other projects in the near future—including an R&B album, an “energy” album (“You want to go to the gym? You want to be motivated? You press play on this shit.”), and “acoustics” album (“It’ss just vibes. It’s just for Sundays.”), and a “global” album.
“All different concepts, all different messages, all different sounds,” Swizz says. “I’m not trying to put out [‘Poison’] and then go on a hiatus. I’m trying to put this out and then before you know it, you’re seeing the intro to something else. I want this to be a continuation of bodies of work, so people are getting used to me being back in this ring and being unpredictable and ultra competitive.”
