(upbeat dramatic music)
- [Narrator] It's showtime.
- It's always the breath to give this man an introduction.
But I'm gonna do it anyway.
The one, the only showtime Swizz Beatz.
- Zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone.
- [Iyana] Wassup?
- Wassup?
- We are live at the skating rink.
- Great Brook.
Brook, New Jersey.
- This is lit.
- The playground.
- [Iyana] Why you like to skate so much?
- [Swizz Beatz] I mean this is a form of freedom.
And also what I love about it is it's the time
when the culture come together and have movement, right?
The culture don't move no more.
- Right.
- And you just wanna sit still--
- And look cool.
- And be cool.
Skating brought our culture together
with fun and even brothers holding hands.
But in a creative way and a real festive way.
And you never really see that in our communities.
So the skating rink brought all the communities together.
I used to go to the skate rink in the Bronx.
We was brought up on that
so I wanted to bring the attention back to skating.
- That's so cool.
- Yeah it's been fun.
- And you gonna lose your inhibitions a little bit
and just kick it.
- Yeah, you fall in between and get back up.
- [Iyana] Right.
- Yeah.
- Well we are at the skating rink
to talk about your new album.
- Yeah, skate faster.
(laughs loudly)
- [Iyana] Poison.
- [Swizz Beatz] Yeah, Poison.
- [Iyana] I'm just gonna go ahead
and say congratulations in advance.
- Yeah thank you.
- [Iyana] Because it's fire.
- [Swizz Beatz] You have some sneak peeks, huh?
- [Iyana] I burnt myself.
It was, gosh.
People have no idea.
It's fire.
- They'll find out.
- The title has a really powerful idea,
so talk to me about the title, Poison.
- Well the reason why I named it Poison
was because if you look around
at what's going on in the world
one may say it's poison, right?
You look at the news, look at the images.
You look at our current situation of government.
You look at all of these different things
and it feels like poison.
But we can't turn our heads to the poison
and just act like that didn't happen to me
or anybody in my family so let's keep it moving.
In reality, you have to face your poison
in order to poise on.
- You said that this album, Poison,
is for your core audience.
Who is Swizz Beatz's core audience?
- My core audience is the real hip hop fans
that love quality, that still love lyricism, poetry,
and just actually the craft of music and hip hop.
The actual art of it.
This album is for them.
- You're already a legend.
- [Swizz Beatz] Young legend?
- You could've never dropped another piece of music
and your legacy is still what it is.
Grammy's, number one albums, like still what it is.
- 580 songs since I was 17.
380 million records sold domestic.
Not even international.
I never really talk about numbers.
- But like, they're there.
- But I'm talking about them now.
- Nah, the numbers are there.
You already performed, right?
Is that a weight lifted
that you don't have to worry about no more
and you can just create?
- [Swizz Beatz] I never really worried about it.
At that point, I always just focused on creating.
I don't have plaques and anything hung up in my house.
I don't need to be reminded of what I've done
because I feel what I've done
and I am what I've done, right?
I just like to move forward
but I'm still not over none of my songs.
I'm not over (mumbles), over none of my accolades
because that would just be ungrateful.
But I'm also not dwelling on them
to where that people would rather kiss the ring
or something like that.
- How are you keeping that balance?
What keeps that balance for you
of not getting too obsessed with what you've already done
and still wanting to do more?
- Because once you do something, it's done already.
I had my payoff of all of those things I've done already.
The new payoff is the things I haven't done.
Like being able to put together a project like Poison
that I took off big songs off this album,
of songs that people would die to have,
just to not compromise the craft.
Because a lot of people, they compromise their craft
for a number one record or something like that
or whatever, charting, things like that.
And I feel that Poison's gonna chart.
I feel that there's number one records on it.
But I'm not going all-out just for a number one record,
or just for a radio record
or just for whatever title of a record.
I'm going for a quality of work that's curated
where every artist on it
is delivering a hundred percent or better.
So that's how people made the cut for the album.
They had to deliver the maximum best
that you know them for or higher.
- [Iyana] And then you have J. Cole
as co-executive producer.
Talk to me about that decision and what his role was.
- That decision came at the last minute
after the work was done,
after even knowing the work was being done, right?
It's not like I called him up and was like,
"I'm starting this album,
"come and executive produce it with me."
Or he called me and said,
"Swizz, I want to executive produce your album."
It didn't happen like that.
It happened naturally just being in the studio,
me critiquing or listening to the records from him,
him listening to records from me
and just critiquing small things.
Then I got into the body of work
and I started playing him
what I felt was the album at that time,
which was way more than ten songs.
And then he was like,
"Man, the first set that you played for me,
"I'm scared of that.
"That's on fire.
"That's good for hip hop.
"Other songs are good for hip hop,
"but I just feel like they're not,
"I just don't feel you need it.
"And I know it's gonna be hard for you
to make that decision."
And then we started getting into conversations of why
and it gave me the confident,
even though I'm the young OG in this situation.
It gave me the concept to let certain things go.
And then to further along rollout plans
as far as putting the the royal star
and just doing certain things
that I wouldn't necessarily think.
Because I think super big picture.
- [Iyana] Right.
- And he's like keep it grounded.
He end up spending a lot of money for my videos,
like a lot of stuff.
- [Iyana] That's dope.
- And so I was using a lot of his different things
and I was like, "You know what?
"If I look back and I see all the different things
"that I used that really made a great impact on this record,
"it was things that me and him communicated about."
And he acted as an executive producer
so why don't I just give it to him?
I feel like a lot of people from my generation
need to communicate and collaborate
with artists from this generation also
and not play some type of mega OG role.
He was like, "You know what I did?"
I was like, "Okay, we know what you did
"but what we can do together is even bigger."
- I was gonna get into that later.
It's about this generational divide
that a lot of people feel like hip hop is experiencing
where the OGs don't respect the young kids
and the young kids don't respect the OGs.
- Yeah, I remember that even from when I started.
A lot of my heat was coming from the OGs at that time.
It was like, "Oh well his beats are simple.
"Cassio's suing him, Cassio never sued."
It was just like where all of that
was coming from like the OGs.
That wasn't coming from the young community
at that particular time.
It was leveling, but a lot of my hate and different things
was coming from the OGs.
So I remember being a J. Cole
or whatever you want to name that.
that a OG might not feel comfortable with
because their talent is moving in a direction
that the OG probably don't have no say so or control.
- The introduction to this album was Pistol On My Side.
I wanted to throw my shoe when I first heard that song
because that--
- [Swizz Beatz] Still want to throw.
- Like fire.
Talk to me about creating that record with Wayne.
- I don't know if people notice,
but I never did really energy records with Wayne.
I always did conceptual records with him.
So if you go to Dear Anne, you go to Dr. Carter,
what's more, she's in there somewhere.
She's on Dr. Carter as the doctor.
Because like he already had like--
- What, that's my, what?
- That's mull-it
- Wow.
- Good evening, mister.
- [Iyana] Wow.
- Everybody was just like, Wayne was pistol hot at that time
when I was working on those songs with him.
But everybody was just like
trying to fight for the single, fight for the single.
And I was just like, "You know what?
"I'm gonna just get in the right by something,
"and give him a topic that I know nobody's doing."
It just was perfecting timing.
Wayne is a person where I send him a concept,
tell it to him.
He'll send it right back.
He's a very private artist.
It's not like we're in the studio
and I'm like, "Oh, do this."
He'll listen to it.
We'll vibe and talk nothing about music.
We might be talking about some special coffee.
We might just be talking about the hot sauce challenge.
We just having fun.
People don't realize
that I just have regular conversations.
- Right, they're people.
- Yeah.
And so it just naturally happened and then I left Miami
and I get this like boo-do in the phone
and it's like the song and I just passed out right there.
This is what you're doing with that concept.
This is what we going.
This is how we feel it.
Okay, let's go.
We just kept building on that
and then fast-forward to the video
and I almost broke my whole leg in the escape part.
Wayne, I'm still hurting, my knee's still hurting.
Because my scab is cleaning up a little bit though.
(laughs)
I thought I broke my shin!
- That's crazy.
We just starting, we just starting.
I'm just starting.
Like I didn't even begin yet.
Everything I did before and I mentioned before this,
that's the warmup.
They don't even understand what they in for.
- They really don't.
- And my shoulders is very calm for a reason.
Because the storm is coming.
- And then the next single up is Young Thug.
- [Swizz Beatz] Yeah.
- 25 Soldiers.
- [Swizz Beatz] Yeah.
- It is not the Young Thug you might expect.
Talk to me about this record.
- That goes back to the album.
I have an opportunity with Young Thug
to do something he's never done just to do the same thing.
I don't operate like that.
I'm gonna show you another Young Thug
and I'm gonna challenge Young Thug to be another Young Thug
but still be himself,
but raise the bar on the artistic level.
Man, when I play the Young Thug song
for like big artists that's known for lyrical,
they pull it back like whoa.
Have you said that word again?
I'm like, "That's Young Thug.
"Get out, get up, leave the room,
"come back and pull that back."
I don't think I'm hearing things right.
- It's real though.
- It's real.
- And I guess the question that I thought of is like
what is it about a Swizz Beatz's production
that brings this out of artists?
- I think it's more than the production.
I think it's my energy and our chemistry.
Because like I said, a beat may forgive even a better beat
than all my beats on the album,
but the artist might not feel that connection
and the song might not be better than, right?
- [Iyana] Right.
- It all comes down to you personally.
What's your personality?
I didn't survive from 17 to 40 just off of hit records.
I survived in this culture and industry
off of being a genuine person.
I speak to all the young artists, older artists
on so many off the record conversations about life.
And it's about building friendship
and that's why I tell producers,
I'm like, "Listen man, build friendships.
"Don't worry about just getting the check for something.
"Build friendships because there's gonna be a time
"where they not gonna call you for music.
They understand, they not gonna call you for music
so what's your entry point back in if it's not around music?
It's like (mumbles) you know,
I need help with my new son
and I know he's familiar in that area
or I need some advice with my fiance
or I need some advice on going into art.
Or I need some advice.
So it's meaning different--
- Human things.
- Yeah, human things.
We don't talk to each other as humans in this industry.
We only want to call each other when we need things.
And I just think that's a downfall in this whole culture.