Watch The Just Blaze/Swizz Beatz Beat Battle
Swizz Beatz and Just Blaze are two of the all-time great rap producers, and both of them emerged from the greater New York area around the same time. And on Friday night, the two of them went back and forth at each other, playing their most iconic tracks against each other in the spirit of friendly competition. The two took turns playing the tracks that they produced, mixing them up with their original sample sources and chopping them up in real time. And they did this for nearly three hours, in a tiny room full of luminaries like Ebro, Cassidy, and an increasingly drunk and excited Busta Rhymes. The whole thing went down on a glitchy Instagram Live feed, and it was just magical. Near the end, Just did absolutely ridiculous things with Jay Z’s “PSA,” and Swizz retaliated by played what seemed to be an unreleased Jay Z/Nas/DMX collab. The whole thing is way more riveting than two guys punching at laptops and MPCs for three hours should be, and you can watch it below.
The two are now talking about establishing a whole beat-battle circuit with other great producers, and I sincerely hope that this becomes a thing.