WEBVTT

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Swizz Beatz: I got it.

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So are you guys going to mute when I talk

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so nothing interrupts it?

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Voice: Uhh, yes.

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SB: Because once I'm in the flow,
I like to stay in the flow.

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Having some type of support

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is very necessary when you are creative.

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You know, there has to be something
that's fueling that creativity,

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that's fueling that fire
that you have inside.

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My love for music and creativity
starts way back, way back.

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Back in the South Bronx where I grew up,

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building 700, apartment 2E.

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I would go outside
and all I would hear is music.

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You go around to the back park,
the DJs are playing,

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there's a basketball game going on,

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but then you would look
at the handball court,

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and that handball court
would have an amazing graffiti mural,

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I don't know if it's from
Keith Haring or Fab 5 Freddy.

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I was instantly attracted to the creative.

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Music has been my therapy since day one.

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Anytime I get stressed out,

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I go to the arts,
I go to creativity, I go to music.

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Music makes people feel hugged,
people feel loved.

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And then I remember
one of my uncles saying,

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"You should get into producing,"
I'm like, "What's producing?"

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You know, it started
as a family-owned business,

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because Ruff Ryders
was created by my family.

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It gave you DMX, it gave you Eve,

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it gave you Drag-On, it gave you The LOX.

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I've gotten every accolade
in music that one can get.

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It just came to the point
where it's like, "You know what?

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I'm no longer going to have fun with this
unless I'm able to give back."

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You know, The Dean Collection started
for me to create a museum for my family

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and our name.

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Something that my kids
would have to be responsible

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to pass through generations.

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I said, "Wait a minute,

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The Dean Collection is not just
for The Dean Collection,

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The Dean Collection is for everyone."

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There are some galleries now
and places you walk in,

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if you don't have 50,000,
there's nothing to talk about.

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And I felt that a lot of people
were using that as an excuse

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to exit art.

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They feel that art
is only for rich people.

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Whoa.

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We've got to stop this,
we've got to fix this.

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And that's what made me and my wife say,

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you know, we have to create an entry point
to the younger generation

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that didn't understand the art world,

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didn't have their seat at the table,

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and then we started "No Commissions."

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It's a big event,

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you got 30-something-thousand
RSVPs a night.

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The drinks are free, the food is free,

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the concert's free.

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The education is free,

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and I feel that education should be free.

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We went to Shanghai, we went to London,

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we went to Berlin,

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we did it right in my backyard
in the South Bronx.

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You can come in to "No Commissions"

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and get something for a couple of bucks,

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or a couple hundred thousand.

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There's a tier for every person
that has love for art.

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And what we're doing is something
totally different from a gallery.

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The artists keep 100 percent of the sales.

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But what about after "No Commissions,"

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how can you sustain,
how can you move forward

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without having to be trapped
to sell your soul?

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I was a part of the sale with my brother
Sean "Diddy" Combs,

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the 21-million-dollar purchase,

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which made Kerry James Marshall

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the highest-selling African American
living artist to today.

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I'm like, "Man,
you just broke the record,"

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and the artist was like,

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"Yeah, I don't know whether
to be happy or to be sad."

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He first sold that work,
it was under 100,000.

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So imagine a work that you made
for under 100,000

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is now being sold for 21 million,

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and you had to sit home and watch this.

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And you couldn't even
participate five percent.

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When you look at it,

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I'm a producer, I'm a songwriter,

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every time it's played on the radio,

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I get paid.

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Every time it's played in a movie,

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I get paid.

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Every time it plays, period,

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I get paid.

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Visual artists, they only get paid once.

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How, when paintings are sold
and traded multiple times?

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And that's that artist's lifetime work,

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that other people are making 10, 15,

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sometimes 100 times more
than the artist that created it.

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So I created something
called the Dean's Choice,

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where if you're a seller,

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or a collector,

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and you bring in your work
into, let's say, Sotheby's,

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there's a paper that's there
that says, "Hey, guys, you know,

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this artist is still living.

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You've made 300 percent on your investment

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by working with this artist.

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You can choose to give the artist
whatever you want of the sale."

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I think that even if five people did it,

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it'll start to change
everything in the arts.

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And this is happening in Europe already.

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It happens in the music industry,

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it's called publishing.

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And artists are able to survive,

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musicians are able to survive,

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years after years,

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off of the residual income
of their publishing.

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So how can we take something
that brings creatives together,

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and celebrate each other?

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Myself and Timbaland
have been working on this idea

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called Verzuz for about three years now.

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Then this trying time came,

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and everybody started
going to social media

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to express themselves.

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So what we did was I played my top songs,

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he played his top songs,

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and we went on Instagram Live.

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(Video) (Laughter)

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Timbaland: You having fun?

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This is so good for the culture.

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SB: A lot of people like to say "battle,"

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we pulled back off of that word "battle,"

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because we're battling enough
in the world today.

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We call it educational celebration.

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I think we're on our ninth or tenth one.

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Me and Timbaland started out
with 20,000 people.

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As of yesterday,
750,000 people in one room.

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So, we have this thing
called the "Verzuz Effect."

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And the "Verzuz Effect"
is what happens to the artist

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after they contribute to Verzuz.

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We can go to the Babyface
and Teddy Riley.

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They both went up millions of views.

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Both of their songs reentered the charts.

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And then we look
at the first ladies Verzuz,

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and both Erykah Badu and Jill Scott

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have seven positions in the top 20 charts.

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This is the Verzuz Effect.

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You know, billions and billions
and billions of impressions.

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This is something I've never seen before.

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And I felt that these artists
are getting their flowers today,

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which is a great thing,
while they can smell them.

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This was personal for me,

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because many a times
I've been counted out,

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I've been hot and cold 100 times.

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You still have to understand
the business as an artist,

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to elevate to your level
that you deserve to be.

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Because most creatives,
we're very emotional,

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we're very "let somebody else handle that,
I want to stick to this."

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But not only creativity is key,
education is key,

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which is the reason
why I went back to school

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to sharpen my pencil in my mid-30s.

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We have to know our business.

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But it's going to take us
digging in a little deeper

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and pulling out the knowledge
that we need to prepare ourselves

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for this world that's waiting
to take advantage of the creatives.

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Then we can make better choices,

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then we can end that conversation
of artists dying poor.

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If we're not protecting the arts,

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we're not protecting our future,

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we're not protecting this world.

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Creativity heals us.

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What's these shades closing for?

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Time out.

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(Scoffs)

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Voice: I kind of like that.
That was cool.

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SB: (Laughs)