Swizz Beatz Details Unreleased Nas Collaborations

During an appearance at the annual Vibe Impact Awards, New York City producer Swizz Beatz recalled working in the studio with fellow artist and Vibe Impact Awards honoree Nas. According to Swizz, there were countless times when he and the Queensbridge emcee would appear in the studio together for a session and never release what was recorded.

He attributed the surplus of unreleased music between the pair on timing. Swizz says on several occasions there wasn’t enough time to knock out music for an upcoming project and the two would instead choose to “save it for the next album.”

“This is my Virgo brother. We’ve done many sessions together,” Swizz said. “A lot of songs never came out, but we did many sessions together. Because like when we get in the studio it’s just a weird vibe because we forget how much we vibe together. Because he go do his thing. I go do my thing. And when we’re finally in the studio it’s like ‘Man, why we ain’t do this six months ago. You know, I gotta turn my album in next week.’ So, we trying to cram in 50 songs in like a week. And then we say ‘Let’s just save it for the next album.’ We did that about four albums back to back. So, hopefully this album, Stoute won’t let that happen.”

Before welcoming Nas on stage to accept his award, Swizz credited the rapper as being “the poet of our generation” and “a stone in the music business.”

“It’s just an honor just to know you as a brother,” he said. “To speak art. To speak fashion. To speak culture. To speak pilgrimage trips that we plan on taking our families on. And just doing real brother things that people don’t do. And just to celebrate each other…The poet of our generation and generations to come. You a stepping stone. You a stone in this music business.”

Despite their unreleased work, Swizz Beatz and Nas have released a number of collaborations including “Summer On Smash,” a track featured on Nas’ 2012 album Life Is Good. The song is produced by Swizz and also features West Coast crooner Miguel. Swizz also lent his production assistance on Nas’ God’s Son record, “The G.O.D.”