Swizz Beatz Talks "Godfather of Harlem" Soundtrack, Working with Jadakiss & the Future of Verzuz

What was it like working with your brother Jadakiss on that single

Oh man, getting money, hustle repeat, working with my brother Jada. I mean that's what he do, he get money, hustle repeat since 98 and to be able to have him a part of Godfather of Harlem

has just been like, it's like a dream come true to bring your family on a ride with you

and then be a part of something so epic with Forrest Whitaker

The show is, it's the only thing like it on TV and I had to bring my bro in so it was an honor

You're such a creative, you've been doing this for so long. Did you face any challenges with crafting music that fits like the 60s time frame

I didn't really have a problem making the music because I was allowed to do what I wanted to do

because I was able to like pick songs the way that you didn't know what time period it was

You just know what you felt when you was watching the film and that's the thing like I might put an old school vibe in it

but I have a new school person on it or unknown person on it. You know we didn't really go for what's the hits on the radio, we went for what made the film look amazing

and what made Bumpy Johnson look great. So each season you get to change the musical landscape because of the year in which the show takes place

How did you change the landscape and push the envelope in season 3? Well season 3 had more of a Latin vibe with Jose Battle which was a gangster in the streets, also a CIA agent

You know so then we was dealing with Cuba and so we was able to mix a Latin feel into it which we didn't have in season 2

So I love these challenges to be able to like deal with the surprises

So it was like okay this season we're gonna lean more to the Latin vibe

Che Guerrero is gonna do the speech and they're gonna try to assassinate him and Malcolm X so this is gonna be the vibe and the tone

Okay got the notes, let's deliver. Knowing what black people have faced in this country, were there any scenes that made you emotional

Oh man, knowing what we dealt with in this country as African and African-Americans

You know a lot of scenes like they really definitely touched me

Everything Malcolm went through touched me, everything Ali went through touched me

Even the gangster himself you know what Bumpy Johnson had to go through because when you look at what he really was doing

When he was really trying to change his environment and change the community although he had to start off in a negative way

He was eventually trying to get to a positive way but he just faced so many challenges getting to that way

And a lot of us we start from the negative and we start from the poor and the weak because that's the cause we was dealt with

But I look at myself as coming from the Bronx and to racing camels in Saudi Arabia and to graduating from Harvard

You know we look at a person like Bumpy that we might can ridicule and say all the negative things

But like there was a lot of positive things that he did and so that was an educational point for me as well

And I like it's not how you start it's how you end it although his didn't end all the way well

But I know that that's where he wanted to go. Lastly who are your top five favorite producers that are alive and then top five favorite rappers that are alive

I'm bad with top five. I'm not gonna lie like because like I commend

No because I commend all of the producers you know whether they was hot yesterday or hotter today

I just commend them for even giving their time to the craft and you know contributing to music

You know I could easily say Dr. Dre this one that one

But it was so many other producers that even inspired Dre that inspired me that inspired so many producers

So I just give my hat off to all the producers that took their time out to do some positive and give our community and our culture some shit we could dance to

Versus is coming back real soon. You know like sometimes you got to take a time out to regroup

You know what we built was phenomenal in the pandemic which lasted outside the pandemic

But the company got so big that we had to regroup and the way we coming back we coming back unexpected

We're coming back new. We're coming back fun. We're coming back creative

The things that we was when we started you know so to just know that we're taking this time out to come back and a bigger and better way that the people going to love