Billboard Arabia sat down for an unique one-on-one with Grammy-winning producer, rapper, songwriter and DJ Kasseem Daoud Dean — identified professionally as Swizz Beatz — for an interview about his work in Saudi Arabia. Nowadays, the 45-year-old musician-turned-businessman spends his time hyping up one place specifically, and that’s the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
“Why Saudi?” appears to be the query on everybody’s thoughts. “Why not Saudi?” Swizz Beatz solutions assertively. “It’s so superb and has a lot heritage.” Talking with the identical ardour you’d discover in locals of Jeddah and Riyadh arguing over which metropolis they assume is cooler, Swizz Beatz’s advocacy for Saudi creativity runs deep and began means earlier than the dominion determined to leverage movie star affect as a part of its international tourism marketing campaign.
“It’s superb to see the place all the things goes, from once I began coming to Saudi, to what I see immediately,” explains Swizz Beatz, who has been visiting the nation since 2006 and supporting its skills even earlier than that, equivalent to in early 2000, when he crossed paths with a younger child from Jeddah who had large desires of rapping about his homeland internationally.
“Skinny was the primary Saudi artist I produced. His final album, I government produced. I received him his deal, I structured his deal, and to see him on [the MDLBEAST] stage in entrance of all of these folks, singing these songs that we have been sitting within the studio with, it simply exhibits you that Saudi just isn’t far off in any respect!”
In March 2022, Skinny launched the bass-laden observe “Saudi’s Most Needed,” produced by Swizz Beatz, accompanied by a three-minute video set to a montage of scenes all through the dominion.
“I believe the artistic neighborhood right here is prospering! I’ve a compilation with some native artists referred to as MOYA, together with Jeed, Shaolin and Ntitled. All of these guys are household to me. Once I got here right here and was listening to their music and their tales, I stated to myself, ‘ what? I need to give everyone music.’” Just a few months later, those self same artists debuted on the area’s greatest music pageant, Soundstorm.
Having labored with legends equivalent to DMX, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Drake, Mary J. Blige and his spouse, Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Alicia Keys, Swizz Beatz has all the time had a watch for artistic expertise. Very like an unofficial model ambassador for the dominion, Swizz Beatz can usually be seen publicly commenting on his movie star buddies’ Instagram posts with Saudi flag and crimson coronary heart emojis. “I’ve been telling them for years! I’ve been saying, ‘You need to come to AlUla! You need to see the event of The Line and NEOM. Go go to JAX!’” Within the time since, Saudi Arabia has continued to increase with artists visiting by way of efficiency alternatives, or on their very own accord. Within the 2023 version of Soundstorm, main headliners from the worldwide hip-hop neighborhood got here by way of together with Will Smith, 50 Cent and Travis Scott, to call a couple of.
“See, I’m type of biased about Saudi. For me, it’s like being house. It’s like asking me about my own residence while you talk about Saudi. I really feel prefer it’s going to be the primary place on this planet, interval. Particularly while you have a look at all the brand new locations being constructed, the power the area has generally.
“I only recently went to the Noor Pageant [in Riyadh] and there have been a whole lot of superb artists in that individual present,” he says. “There’s Ahmed Mater, who is a good good friend.”
An avid collector of artwork, Swizz Beatz admits he’s always impressed by the various skills he meets within the kingdom. “I’m getting them [Saudi artists] into my museum present in New York on the Brooklyn Museum. That’s coming quickly insha’Allah, so their work might be seen overseas as nicely. However the artwork scene [in Saudi] is tremendous booming. There’s a whole lot of expertise right here on all sides of artwork — trend, music and visible images. To see all of those doorways open has been superb to observe.”
Swizz Beatz is rather more than a spectator. His newest endeavor, the brand new headquarters of his Riyadh-based firm, Good Intentions, is much less workplace house and extra incubator-like venue that may simply be reworked into an interchangeable setting, ultimate for all aspects of creativity.
“I’ve seen so many kinds in Saudi already now. It’s not only one specific model,” he explains. Swizz Beatz admits Saudi is a melting pot of influences and aesthetics, and exporting its tradition is simply as vital because the nation opening as much as the remainder of the world.
When closing out the interview, Swizz Beatz gave a last testomony to his pleasure in regards to the progress in Saudi, stating, “The factor that I like is that everyone’s in their very own vibe and everyone’s supporting one another.”