Hip-Hop Made: Swizz Beatz

Back with another installment of Hip-Hop Made, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the birth of Hip-Hop, Swizz Beatz sat down with Audacy Hot 93.7’s DJ Buck and Big Regg for an in-depth conversation about all things Hip-Hop, his career, and more. Swizz touched on finding his calling as a Producer through his time as a DJ and discovering his sound, to working with the likes of DMX in the past and now working with up and comers like Scar Lip, plus a whole lot more. There’s no denying everybody know a Swizzy beat when it comes on, so what is it exactly that led Swizz to find his distinct sound? “I think that came from, that came from just wanting to be different,” Swizz expressed. “You know, like back then, at that time, you had to have a distinct sound to make it, you know. If you had the same sound as somebody else that was kind of a violation.” Calling out how different it is from “today where everybody can pull from the same sound and add a name tag.” Swizz asserted, “back then that wouldn't have worked, back then you had to be your own movement, you understand?” He continued, “like Timbaland, you know what a Timbaland beat — he got the babies crying and all of this or that. Oh, that's a Timbaland beat right there. You know a Pharrell beat, you know, Just Blaze, you know, Kanye, like Dre, like everybody just had their own sound. And so it was important for me to stop sampling and create my own sound. Because when I was sampling, it wasn't giving me my own sound. And then a lot of people was just using the same thing. So when I stopped sampling, that's how you got ‘Ruff Ryder’s Anthem’ and all those songs from that point on, just because it was distinct, it was new, and I was able to just do what I wanted to do, you know? And the drums made the sound even more distinct.” Not to mention “the horns too,” as Regg added. In keeping with the traditional Audacy Hip-Hop Made questions, Swizz was asked what was the first Hip-Hop song he heard that made him say — "oh, this is different… this is it." Giving us a list of three for good measure, Swizz noted, “my first Hip-Hop cassette that I purchased when I got my box radio, Ultramagnetic MC’s “Ego Trippin’.” “That's in my DNA,” Swizz expressed, “those drums, like, that energy. Like I couldn't believe that somebody did something like that. Right? I played that song, I repaired that tape at least 150 times.” "Number two, and this is in no particular order, I'm just giving you the order that I heard em in, was ‘Eric B. Is President,’” by Eric B. & Rakim. “I remember… it just made you feel fresh," Swizz recalled. “Like, you know… you wanted to make sure you had the righ ...