Swizz Beatz & Timbaland Talk ‘Verzuz’ Battles
Swizz Beatz and Timbaland’s “Verzuz” battles have been all the rave during the quarantine. Vibe magazine recently spoke to the two iconic producers about the popular series.
During the interview, Swizzy and Tim discussed how the series came to fruition, their favorite moments from the series, and why they want to halt culture vultures.
According to Timbaland, he and Swizz Beatz came up with the idea for “Verzuz” three years ago. “I think the first battle was something that I can say that me and Swizz had this idea for Verzuz three and a half years ago,” Timbaland said.
“The world is so dark right now, I woke up one day just feeling brave and I called Swizz like, ‘We should do it over IG Live.’ As soon as I said it, we just did it, we just had fun with it. We just gave the world something beautiful for 5 hours to take their mind off of what’s going on.”
A myriad of companies has swiftly attempted to cash in on the Verzuz series, which Swizz Beatz previously addressed in a video on Instagram calling them “culture vultures.” He expounded upon the situation during the interview as well.
“Right now, there’s no politics involved and we’re having a great time. The minute you see a logo running across that screen, it’s just gonna feel crazy. And I think we should be promoting what we promoting: the artists. Period. The creatives. Period. No interruptions,” Swizz Beatz said.
“Give us five minutes on that, let the creatives have theirs, five minutes without being interrupted by a logo. That’s our vibe right now. Let the creatives get their five minutes without being interrupted by a [expletive] logo. Let the artists be people for five seconds, you know what I’m saying?”
“I was gonna sum it down to just let us breathe. We’re having fun. Don’t mess up the fun,” Timbaland added. ” Just give us a minute. We’ll come to you.”
“Or put your proposal in now and come talk to us after the quarantine. You can do that now, and then after the quarantine, we can get to it. Cause right now we in a very hardcore situation,” Swizz Beatz continued. “This is the second of April, so this is a very crucial month. If things don’t change this month, there isn’t gonna be anything to talk about but survival. It’s not gonna matter anyway. We got 6 million -”
“That’s why this is so important. Because even for me, and I tell Swizz this all the time, it’s giving me joy for three hours out the day that feels like I left my house. But I didn’t leave my house. It’s that feeling of great music and curation and you don’t be thinking bout the offers and…nah man. I’m looking at the people,” Timbaland said of the series before talking more about the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It can be frustrating because they asking ‘Who next? Who next?’ ‘I want this person next,’ but that means these people are engaged in a time like this, where people are losing jobs like…you can’t do that, you gotta give us those five minutes. It’s serious out here. Very serious.”
Timbaland then talked about his favorite moments from “Verzuz.” “My favorite moment from Sean and Dream’s battle was Sean kept making them faces (laughs), like what is wrong with you?” Timbaland said. “But then he’d drop a bomb so it’s like oh snap! That was one of my favorites from that.”
Swizz Beatz’s favorite moment from the series was from Hit-Boy and Boi-1da’s battle.”My favorite moment was when Hit-Boy and Boi-1da was playing exclusives that people respect in a battle, cause that’s a hard card right there,” Swizz Beatz said. “I like that they both had mega records that nobody had heard of, to pull out in a battle. I like that they had exclusives. But big exclusives. Cause it’s hard to play exclusives in a battle, people are playing hits.”