‘That’s really just a forum for people to promote great music,’ producer says of weekly free-music series. By Mawuse Ziegbe Swizz Beatz Photo: Sohyung Kang/ MTV News Swizz Beatz is leaving his free music on the Web. The Grammy-nominated producer’s weekly Monster Mondays series of gratis ear goodies follows in the footsteps of fellow MC and songsmith Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Fridays campaign , but unlike ‘Ye, Swizzy maintained that his upcoming Haute Living album will be largely free of Monster records. “Monster Mondays is its own entity for right now. But will I put my first single on Monster Mondays? 100 percent. Monster Mondays, Swizzworld,100 percent. I’m gonna promote my stuff when it’s time,” Swizz recently told MTV News. “That’s really just a forum for people to promote great music, which is now turning into them shooting videos for it, labels putting up budgets for it. It’s just a great forum.” True to the spirit of the initiative, some of the music has already turned up on other projects, like the Diddy-Dirty Money track “Ass on the Floor,” which first hit the Web via Monster Mondays but ultimately ended up on the trio’s debut LP. So far, everyone from Ace Hood to Busta Rhymes has participated in the campaign — which kicked off in October — but Swizzy singled out his team-up with lyrical legend Rakim as his personal highlight of the series. “My favorite song on there is ‘King Tut.’ Getting a chance to work with Rakim and let people to just hear him, like, in 2010 when he did it. Like, that’s Rakim right there. Just to be able to say that I did that was super fun and [there’s] no politics involved. We don’t gotta deal with nobody. It’s no politics — I’m not talking to no labels, no management. It’s like, ‘Yo, you either wanna do it or not,’ ” Swizz explained of the project’s energy. Swizz has also switched up Kanye’s original music-centric blueprint by putting out a brief documentary of the creation of “Speechless,” a track that features his superstar wife Alicia Keys and longtime Ruff Ryder crony Eve riffing over Yeezy’s “Devil in a New Dress” beat. As the hitmaker is apparently in full-on collaborative mode — outside music, Swizz has also struck up partnerships with Reebok and luxury car company Aston Martin — he also got the production pupils from his New York University class in on the Monster Monday action. “Then taking it to what I did with my wife with the documentary with her and Eve, taking a whole other side and adding a documentary vibe to it. The biggest thing out of the documentary, other than them seeing the process, was it was done by some of my students from NYU,” he said. “Just taking that and adding talent with talent, it’s just fun. It’s all fun.” What Monster Mondays track do you like best so far? Let us know in the comments! Related Artists Swizz Beatz
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Swizz Beatz Says No Monster Mondays Tracks Will Make Haute Living
