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Swizz Beatz and Timbaland, the Rap Battle Buds
Posted
December 4, 2020
Views
1,852
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December 4, 2020
1,852
12
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0.76%
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Dec 4, 20202:43Now PlayingMusic producer Timbaland was at home drinking wine when he decided to entice (perhaps taunt) his producer friend Swizz Beatz. He posted three videos of himself making music—or playing it while talking about how great it made him feel—to his Instagram feed and tagged his buddy.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, the two had discussed going on tour, playing hits from their catalogs and bringing on collaborators at each stop. Now that Covid-19 had stranded them at home, Timbaland wanted to revive the idea as a virtual concert: “I said, ‘I think we should just do it now.’ ”
An hour later, the two were live on Instagram, taking turns playing clips of songs they’d produced for big-name artists such as Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and Missy Elliott. At the peak of their performance, about 20,000 people watched Timbaland prance around his studio while Swizz played tunes on his car stereo. “No promo, no nothing. We just popped up on Live and went for about five hours,” Swizz says.
Within days, the stream had morphed into something they called Verzuz—part performance, part competition, part history lesson, with each one- to three-hour-long episode featuring two legends playing their hits and telling stories. (There’s no official winner, but Instagram Live lets viewers comment in real time.)
At first, Swizz and Timbaland recruited fellow producers before expanding to recording artists such as neo-soul singer-songwriters Erykah Badu and Jill Scott. There have been hiccups: R&B producers Teddy Riley and Babyface had some technical issues, so the stream was cut short and delayed a day. “The numbers tripled” when people tuned in for the second try, Swizz says. “People seeing us fight and keep it moving and not fold under pressure—that was a very important Verzuz for us.”
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