Producer Swizz Beatz talks about getting his grown man lifestyle on and taking a more mature approach to his music craft in a new Haute Living Magazine feature.
In the article, Swizz opens up about his past infatuations with jewelry and expensive vehicles.
With no plans to slow down, he maintains this next year as a rebirth of his old self. "Part of the graduation stage is dumbing-down the toys a little bit. You gotta understand, I was doing these things since I was 17, 18 years old, and I'm 31 now. If you are doing the same things in your 30s that you were doing in your teens, something's not right," says Swizz with a chuckle. And it's clear that things have changed. Gone are the extravagant cars and necklaces decked with diamonds, and in their place is a grown man with a clear vision for the future. He is determined to put a tangible feeling back into music, and with his new album in the works, this is his moment. "Music is something that should stick with you and represent a moment in time. I need to raise the bar for that. I need to personally take the risk to make those sounds and take those elements where everyone is over there, but Swizz is over here."
Swizz recently said this year would be his time to shine and show-off his brand.
"2010, I feel is my graduation year," Beatz said in an interview. "And so I'm gonna graduate my brand, my image, my music, my sound, my audience, my reach, everything. So my album is gonna reflect that. I traveled to different countries collecting sounds and bringing it back to the culture because nobody's really raising the bar. And with music, there are things artists are just getting by with and I feel we just need to bring something more tangible to the table so where it's not like a bubble gum factory where the fans are just chewing up the latest flavor and spitting it out. Music used to be something you wanted to put on your shelf as a trophy because it takes you to a moment in time, it takes you to an era, it takes you to that feeling so I think that adding different elements that's not expected, that's not overexposed, that's something new, we can make those moments in time again."
Last January, the producer tweeted about using global sounds on his next solo album.
"MY NEW ALBUM IS GOING TO BE OUT OF THIS WORLD 2010STYLE IM MIXING INDIAN MUSIC WITH ARABIC SOUNDS MEETS BDP! YOU WILL SEE.NEW SOUND TIME!," he wrote onTwitter Monday (January 4) morning. "IM GIVING 30% OF THE $ MADE ON MY ALBUM TO ART & MUSIC SCHOOLS IN NEED SO WE CAN KEEP THE KIDS DOING POSITIVE THINGS WITH THERE LIFE ! ALSO FOR MY ALBUM IM GETTING NEW TALENT FROM AROUND THE WORLD TO BE APART OF THIS NOT JUST THE SAME OLD PEOPLE YOU HEAR 500 TIMES A WEEK! I WANT TALENT THATS BEEN LOST& OVER SEEN ON MY ALBUM LIKE FROM AFRICA,ASIA,INDIA,HATI, ETC YOU NAME IT ! ITS TIME TO SET THE BAR HIGH! 2010."
Outside of music, Beatz also disclosed of his divorce with R&B singer Mashonda earlier this year.
"I don't got a wife no more," Swizz told radio personality DJ Enuff. "I'm 99 percent done, 99 percent. You lucky, you lucky I'm telling you. I'm lucky in a lot of ways, also, with my divorce but it's like the hardest thing I've ever been through. By far. You know what I'm saying? But it was a learning experience. The thing that upset me the most was the approach from the other side, it didn't have to be like that because it's false. It's like false things and having the wrong people around. Pumping yourself thinking you're gonna get a TV show off of so-called exposing. It's like clown things and it's, like, I'm always quiet with this sh*t. I can't answer, I can't even feed into because it's that much foolery to me...The reason why I got my divorce is for real sh*t. I didn't get busted cheating, it wasn't none of that. I had to, I got put into a situation where she was making me pick the relationship with my older son over my marriage."
