S. Samuel
Producer Swizz Beatz has updated fans on the status of his upcoming untitled solo album and said that guest appearances will include Jay-Z, Drake and more.
Beatz is also going to feature his soon-to-be wife, Alicia Keys, on the record.
“I’m working on my album which is super incredible,” he tells OK!. “Got everybody on there from Jay-Z to John Legend to Mary [J. Blige] to Drake. Super amazing album. I’m also working on Lenny Kravitz new album, working with Cold Play. When you’re in album mode and you’re in producing mode, working with any great artist you have fun and try to create the best music you can create. On one song [Alicia] just played keys on. I dont know, cause I dont know which one I’m going to use. I have a few songs. I’m probably going to drop my single with Mary before the summer is over. I’m shooting for that and I’m looking for fall to be Swizz Beatz mania.” (OK Magazine)
Earlier this year, Beatz promised to take an experimental approach with the new album.
“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.” (Rap-Up TV)
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.” (Swizz Beatz’s Twitter)
The upcoming solo project would be his latest since 2007.
It wasn’t until his first solo album, 2002’s G.H.E.T.T.O. Stories, that he started to get notices for his production style and interesting ideas. The next five years would find him landing hit after hit and becoming more in demand with each production. In 2007 he released the infectious single “It’s Me Snitches” to promote the coming full-length One Man Band. (All Music)
Check out a recent Swizz Beatz interview down below:
