Swizz Beatz has teased the possibility of releasing a new posthumous DMX album.
Speaking exclusively to HipHopDX, the super-producer said he has enough material to put together a follow-up to X’s 2021 LP Exodus — but whether that will happen has yet to be decided.
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“We have other songs. Can we make a new X album? For sure,” he said. “Will I make another X album? I don’t know. It has to feel good.”
Swizz, who collaborated with X on a number of hits including “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem,” also explained the softer sound behind Exodus, which was recorded before the Yonkers native died but released after his death.
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“[Exodus], he actually produced and had all of the direction. A lot of people wanted to see X go harder, stronger — they even blamed me for it. But it’s actually what he wanted to do,” he said.
“He was like, ‘Yo, I don’t wanna shoot up and kill everybody in a verse — that’s not what I’m doing.’ He was preparing to go to the next level and do TV shows and he was preparing to graduate his brand.”
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He added: “And so this is why he refrained from doing a bunch of aggressive songs […] It was just a different vibe. This is the music that X really listened to that people don’t know. They think he was just listening to ‘shoot ’em up, bang, bang’ music all day.
“I never heard him listening to that type of music; I always heard X listening to old classics, amazing music. And I felt that he was at a point in his life where he was like, ‘I want to change up the energy.'”
Exodus was released in May 2021, just a month after DMX died of a cocaine-induced heart attack. Swizz Beatz served as executive producer of the project, which featured guests such as JAY-Z, Nas, Snoop Dogg, Lil Wayne, The LOX and Alicia Keys.
While the prospect of new music is on the horizon, Swizz recently reflected on the making of one of his and X’s biggest records: “Party Up (Up in Here).”
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In an interview with Rolling Stone earlier this month, the Grammy-winning hitmaker revealed that his late friend and collaborator needed some convincing to do the song.
“If you listen to ‘Party Up,’ he does everything against the track. Like, you could tell he didn’t want to do the song,” he said. “But I forced him, because we was on a deadline.”
He added: “It’s the most disrespectful verse I think he ever did, and it’s the biggest song we ever made.”
Taken from DMX’s 1999 album … And Then There Was X, “Party Up (Up in Here)” peaked at No. 27 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated for Best Rap Solo Performance at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards.
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It has since been certified triple platinum by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), making it X’s highest-selling single.
