The Breakfast Club - #Change4Change With Swizz Beatz, Son Nasir Dean, And Our Friends At Amazon As We Give Back During The Holidays!

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

The Breakfast Club and Amazon teamed up this year to give back! Thanks to our friends at Amazon we were able to hook up our lucky listeners with some money for the holiday season! #Change4Change Don��t forget to visit the Buy Black Store on Amazon this holiday season for products from Black-owned businesses of all sizes, including small businesses.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As a kid, I really do remember having these dreams and visions, but you just don't know what is going to come for you. Alicia shares her wisdom on growth, gratitude, and the power of love. I forgive myself. It's okay. Have grace with yourself. You're trying your best. And you're going to figure out the rhythm of this thing.

Alicia Keys, like you've never heard her before. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Telling y'all, right? Well, first and foremost, salute to Amazon and all that they did. We really appreciate it. Change for change is something that we started, what? Four, five, six years ago?

I don't remember. Life is a blur. Time is a blur. It's been a while though. Well we did it because we wanted to give back. So many listeners are going through a lot, especially the holiday season, and we wanted to create something where we can give back to different organizations or to people that just need it. And we have helped so many people, from people that lost their house or needed stuff for their kids or lost a family member. And it's just the way that we do every year to help people and people like yourself. So we salute you guys for listening to us. And it's come a long way, right? Because if you think about it, we used to literally sit in the studio for 24 hours.

Yeah. So we would literally broadcast from 6 a.m. in the morning to what was it? Midnight. Midnight at night and we was just literally shaking down you know celebrity my friends in the music industry you know all our celeb friends you try and they were showing up you know they were donating a couple thousand here tens of thousand here sometime 100 thousand dollar fifty thousand yeah and uh yeah we were able to help a lot of people. The first calls we did was HBCUs.

HBCUs, I believe, yeah. Thurgood Marshall College Fund. Yep. Second year, we did- Mental health. Brandon Marshall's three, I think it's, I can't remember the name of the organization, but it's a mental health organization. Yep.

And then that's when it gets blurry for me. It gets blurry for me too. But yeah, that was the reason why we started it. And what we started doing now is finding individual people. Because so many people, especially after the pandemic, need so much help. So we try to do as much as we can. But today we got a special guest that we're going to be kicking it with. Okay.

You might know him as The Monster from New York City. Probably one of the illest producers. Definitely one of the best ever he showed up for you several times showed up to me many times the first real money I ever made in this

business was because of this person that's right so ladies and gentlemen we gonna be kicking it with Swiss Beats and his son Nasir Dean Swizzy!

Swizzy! Zone, zone, zone, zah, zah, zah. Man, what is you feeding him, man? My God. What are you, like, 6'3", 6' zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone,

zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, zone, enough. Now, as we approach the holidays, what does this time of year mean to you, Swiss? Oh, man, holiday times is definitely family times and definitely times to, you know, see how other people are doing

because I notice, like, during the holiday times I see a lot of pressure come on people of what they can do and what they can't do and I just want people to find their balance. Absolutely. When do you find the time for a lot of the stuff that you're doing? Because you're producing, you do verses, you're traveling, you have kids.

When do you find the time to continue to create and do all these amazing things? Everything I do is under the umbrella of creativity. So I make the time and I need to stay busy. That's the key is to stay busy, because I don't feel I started yet, to be honest. I feel like I'm just now starting. Although I've done a lot of things, I feel like I'm just now starting,

because I actually know what I'm doing now. Oh, explain that. Expand on that. You know what you're doing now. Yeah, because when I started, I was a teenager, and things was happening and moving so fast. So you don't really know what you're doing at that age. You're just having fun. I still have fun, but now that that's passed, you got time to say, okay, let me change different things. Let me set different goals.

I went back to school to three years to know what I'm actually doing instead of just doing what people are telling me that I'm doing or believing what somebody is telling me I'm doing instead of really knowing what I'm doing. It's a big difference. What's your favorite holiday memory? Is it New York and the Bronx? Is it

now? What's your favorite holiday memory? My favorite holiday memory? It's all of them, technically. We have fun as a family. We have a big family. We have fun. We tell jokes.

You know, we play pranks. Oh, you remember when I caught your brother that time? Play a lot of games, Uno. We're very competitive with the ping pong, Uno, Monopoly. Who wins on Monopoly all the time? Monopoly will start an argument in my house that lasts three days in my crib. Yeah. Same.

Who wins? Yeah. Alicia's very good. She's very strategic. Egypt. Egypt's very good. Egypt. Egypt.

Egypt. Egypt. Egypt. He's like the Monopoly man. He's like Daddy Warbucks. He loves money. He loves money. He gets it from Mom and Dad.

He loves just counting the paper. He's addicted to money. I'm telling you. Really? Serious. Yeah. And I said, what's your expectations for the holidays? Because your dad's been doing very well for a very long time. So do you even have any wants?

I just want everyone to tune in to drive what we just made. Okay. Coming out on November 16th. And I want everyone to just really cherish this time with their family. Like that's what I want. I don't really have a lot of physical needs this year.

I have spiritual needs, I have family needs. And I want people to really just cherish this time with their loved ones right now because the state that the world is in right now is just really we need that. That's real. Now, let's talk about the show Drive, right? Now, Drive is a car show that comes out. Most people don't know that any time before I purchase a car, I call Swizz. And then when I get the car, I FaceTime FaceTime Swiss so if a FaceTime ever comes up Swiss will be in the bed sleeping and he'll wake up what did you get now Envy what did you get like

we're so excited for for cars so let's talk about drive and what made you want to do this show drive well growing up in the Bronx looking at cars passing in the hood that I couldn't afford that's my car this is my car I eventually got, my first car was the Nissan Z300 twin turbo, I paid what, $6,000 for it at the time. Ever since then, I've just been into cars and collecting and ended up doing car shows. So when this opportunity came, I just was like, man, like you know, I have a chance to not just do a car show,

but do a show that doesn't exist in the car space, which is travel, community, family, father and son. You know, you don't really get to see father and son bonds from our community. That's positive. So I thought that that was a plus. And we wanted to educate people and not just show bling cars, not just putting million dollar cars up, but really showing the everyday person how they make magic as well, which I think is phenomenal. Rob Markman, What's it like working with each other?

Rob Markman, Who, my little brother? We have so much fun. It's not even funny. We don't really have perfect synthesis. We don't know how to work with each other very, very well. I was going to ask, you know what? You guys went to different markets. So you've seen the car culture in New York, you know, the car culture in Houston and California.

What was your favorite car culture and why? I love Japan. Japan. Japan is definitely one of my favorite episodes because the architecture, the culture there, they're like 500 years ahead of us, right? So every single thing that they do there, they're so masterful with it. So when we went to go see the drifting,

we went to actually go drift with the Tokyo Drifters, the drift champion. Never again. We just saw how crazy, like, skillful they were for us to put our lives in their hands and for them to actually, you know, be able to handle that. You know, they were good.

When you say 500 years into the future, like, what do you mean? Like, you know, America's a young continent. Like, Asia is way older, and culturally, and... I'm just talking about the technology of the cars. Historically. Oh, no, no, we're not flying. You're about to make him go deep on you. But in terms of them being masterful at every single thing they do, whether it's making

a drink, cutting ice, designing, doing anime, comic books book sketches, architecture, painting, clothes. We go there for inspiration. So being over there to go into the depth of their culture was like, that was definitely one of my favorite episodes. And you'll see why. I was going to ask, you know, one thing, if you don't know, Swiss is a major collector, right? He

collects a lot, whether it's watches, whether it's artwork. He got me into artwork early. And cars. Swiss was the first person. You know, usually people say when you buy a car, whether it's watches, whether it's artwork. He got me into artwork early. And cars. Swiss was the first person. You know, usually people say when you buy a car, you lose money. But Swiss has figured a way that the cars that he purchased, whether they're small or big, he always makes money and knows when to get out of them. And he calls.

So what do you think about your dad's car collection? And how did you get to the knowledge of learning cars like the way that you do? Because most people say, oh, cars are a bad investment but you you figured that out dad's car collection everyone thinks that my dad has an endless line of cars in the garage right this is a misconception he used to have a lot of cars um in his younger days and now he's just really curated the list of cars that he does have. So it is way more, like I said, curated in the sense of it's just not buying anything to buy anything. Just because it's with purpose and it's with a plan. Facts.

So I've just been observing that. Does he let you drive any of his cars? Yeah, but I don't really ask him like that. Don't just take like the $1 million car, the one that $4 million, just take it around the block one time? Yeah, he would let me. You would let me? He can't fit. You would let me.

He would let me. You would let me, right? No. Right? You don't see how big he is? He can't fit in the damn car. He drove the Laf and his knees was in the dash. Oh, yeah, that's right.

That's right. That's right. You don't the dash. Oh, yeah, that's right. You don't remember that? That's right. Did this help y'all bond? I mean, I'm sure y'all already had a great bond, but did it help y'all bond even more? Yeah, because we have kids and we love our kids, but there's nothing like spending uninterrupted quality time and we would wake up every day, every morning, together every day,

and just communicate. And we did the Gumball 3000 for his 18th birthday. Where did we drive from? We went from Mykonos to Ibiza. From Mykonos to Ibiza, the longest drive of my life. Then they gave us the car with the steering wheel on the wrong side, which made it even worse. But that was a sign because everybody was racing

to go to these different finish lines, and the car with the steering wheel being on the wrong side, it made me slow down and it made us have to spend time together and vibe during that trip. And our favorite song was what the whole time? I Follow Rivers by Leaky Lee. I, I follow. Yeah, that one. I follow...

Who's your favorite road trip partner, Swiss? Naseer or DMX? Because we always hear about the stories of you and X in the car. That's legendary. That's a hard one. I love you, but I got to say DMX. I love you too. For a lot of other reasons

you know X was very animated Nas is laid back he can get animated when he wants to but I would get to hear stories from X that I never heard before when we were in the car like the last car ride we drove

is your country falling apart? feeling tired? Depressed? A little bit revolutionary? Consider this. Start your own country. I planted the flag. I just kind of looked out of like, this is mine.

I own this. It's surprisingly easy. There's 55 gallons of water for 500 pounds of concrete. Everybody's doing it. I am King Ernest Emmanuel. I am the Queen of Laudonia. I'm Jackson I, King of Kaperburg. I am the Supreme Leader of the Grand Republic of Mentonia.

Be part of a great colonial tradition. The Waikana tribe own country. My forefathers did that themselves. What could go wrong? No country willingly gives up their territory. I was making a rocket with a black powder, you know, with explosive warheads. Oh, my God. What is that?

Bullets. Bullet holes. We need help! We need help! You know, this explosive warhead. Oh, my God. What is that? Bullets. Bullets. We need help! We still have the off-road portion to go. Listen to Escape from Zakistan. And we're losing daylight fast. That's Escape from Z-A-Q-istan on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I went to go visit him in upstate New York, and he wanted to go see Scarface in Boston.

And he's like, yo, you know, Scarface is in Boston tonight. I said, okay, shout out to Scarface. You know, I just drove like two hours to go where he was at in the first place. And this one I had the 720 McLaren so it's a sports car and I used to always bring the cars up so X could drive them around when I visit him and he's like hinting again I want to go see Scarface. I'm like you want to go you want me to take you to see Scarface? I just drove two hours and he never really asked me for things like that so I can tell that it was something that he really wanted to do so we get in the

car we go five hours to see Scarface and the whole time five hours in a little ass car this wasn't no big escalade it's little car like his arm and their arms were touching the whole ride my ass still hurt from that drive and so we're driving

and he's playing old school music old school music, old school music. And then he stops the music and he asked me to record him, which he never does. And he just gave me his life story. Like I never heard it before. And that was our last drive, but it was epic. Rob Markman, Jr.: Wow. You still have, of course you have the- Absolutely, yes. Yes.

Wow. And we went on stage and he rocked with Scarface. Wow. All night. Is it time for a DMX documentary, a true DMX movie? It's always time to witness greatness, but I feel that it just has to be, me personally, I just has to be... Me personally, I just wanted

to be shot and directed to the standard of what he gave us. He gave us timeless moments. He gave us his life, literally. And so I feel that... A lot of people have been pitching documentaries and movies, but they don't... It know, it needs to have the right care. And I want it to be the biggest thing in the world for them. Nas, did you learn anything about your dad that you didn't know after working on this series, taking these long road trips? A thousand percent. I learned that he doesn't go as fast as you think he would, having the very fast cars. He actually is pretty reserved now, and he really picks what he wants to do.

He picks how fast he wants to go. He picks if he wants to get in the monster truck. He picks if he wants to go drifting. He has that situational discernment now. I feel like that's pretty good. Situational discernment. I like that. I was gonna ask, you know,

with all the artists that your dad worked with, who did you enjoy listening to and talking to the most? I have two because I haven't really, I haven't sat down with the first one I'm about to tell you, like on a personal, personal note, but Lil Wayne is definitely one of my favorite artists ever and that my dad has collabed with as well. What was I really... What did I really like?

Rob Markman, Jr.: Dad's worked with the whole industry, by the way. Oh, oh, Pharrell. Rob Markman, Jr.: Pharrell. Pharrell. Yeah. I remember being a kid and his energy just lit up the room, and he had such a great spirit. I remember that feeling to this day.

Now, you said Pharrell. Now, this is your dad's pressure. Now, Busta, probably about a month ago, said he's doing an album where Pharrell, Timbaland, and Swiss Beats are the EPs. How? How does that happen? You know, Busta is somebody that don't back down easy.

You can't tell him no. And he signed us up for his project. And we just said, okay, let's do it. He came and he's like, you know, you, Tim, Pharrell, y'all are my producers for the project. I'm like, okay. No, the executive producers. Okay. And then, I don't know, somehow we actually all got into a space, which is a photo of

us on this boat. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, yo, he really manifested this. We didn't even plan to be on that boat at that time. It's not like, okay, let's have an executive producer boat ride. Like, we just all ended up sitting there, and I'm looking around like, okay, I hear the universe. Okay, I guess we're doing it. Is it done? Is it almost done? It's done.

And it needs to come out now. You know, because Busta will hold on to an album for 30 summers. Forever. Right? This might be a stupid question. He's named after Nas, right? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Is Nas like his godfather or something? Or just? No, my mom's from Queens. His mother loved Nas, so you know, I was kind of conflicted in a way, but. You know what I'm saying? But then I was like, shit, I love Nas too.

You know everybody always ask about Versus, man. What's up with Versus? Big things, big things. You know, I'm happy that me and Tim was able to take the time to understand our company because when we launched it it was during the pandemic things is happening like we never got no rest you know like we was

helping everybody else feel better and have something to go to other than the negative news and energy at that time but we didn't take time for ourselves. And so things went fast and we own the company 100% again, which is super fresh. And we got some big announcements coming. I wonder if it's something, I mean, I know it's something artists still want to do, but you know, during the pandemic, it was more pure because it was just about the music. Now it's so much business and red tape involved. Yeah. And naturally when something gets big like that, that happens, but you know, verses,

and I tell people because I hear people on the shows and when you bring up verses, they're like, oh, I don't wanna, and it's not a battle show. It's a show where two artists are celebrating each other with their hits. Now, if you wanna make it a battle, I'm not going to say, hey, don't talk tough to this guy.

Right. You make it a battle, or you can make it a love fest. You know, like, there's been many verses that has been smooth and loving, but with the hip-hop, it's just the ego. You know how it's competitive. Bro, you put the locks and dip set on stage.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And everybody, I think a lot of people thought dip set was going to take that one away. I know many people thought that the dip set was going to. And then it was Jada. Yeah, you got the right hat on. So what was the biggest versus for you as far as culture? Would that be the biggest? Yeah, that and Gucci Mane.

Oh, Jeezy. Absolutely. Yeah, those two because that's where versus do it. You know, it took two guys that really went to war to the point of no return and versus gave them an outlet to, you know, send a different message out there to the youth today because they're not who they was 15 years ago but there's no outlets that can let you

as a man, as a, you know, stand on how you feel and move past from it and this is why, you know, I could, if I stopped versus today I would be fine because we won already, like, it did what it needed to do but it needs to do more. Because verses, the people's streams go up 700%, people sell out their tours. It's so, we call it the verses effect,

and the artists get so much from verses. And so all the artists out there who's listening to this, please stop trying to charge us more than you ever made on your show. You know, show us the love that you show those other outlets that you don't get nothing from it. That's right. You know, and so that was the thing. That was like the hardest thing was hearing the artist trying to overdo it for no reason.

I got to ask because there's been a lot of rumors about some verses that were hopefully will still get done. Did you just say yes or no? I don't want to say yes or no. Did he or Jermaine Dupri, is that going to happen? He just said he don't want to say yes. I know, but I'm going to ask anyway. But the reason, see, because I'm not scared to answer the question, by the way, but what happens is, this clip right here

gets played back to me, and it's like, yo, I didn't really want to confirm that yet, blah, blah, blah, and I have to deal with this offline and say, yo, they asked me a question. Y'all went out there and did a promo run, and y'all went out there and said y'all wanted to do it. All I did was confirm what y'all said. Yeah, but that was a different time. The Versus documentary has been, we've been shooting a documentary since the beginning of Versus.

So Lena Waithe is the director. Y'all going to see all of this when I'm telling you. I tape for it. Yeah. Dr. Dre. I'm just kidding. Dr. Dre versus who? I heard that at one time he wanted,

it was possibly could happen. 100%. I don't think any of those are off the table. I want to ask ask you Nasir, when it comes to having a legendary father like Swiss, do you feel pressure or freedom to succeed? I feel to succeed pressure comes with the territory. I feel like the person that my father is,

I feel freedom and inspiration too. But you know, there are still moments into which we have conversations about why the pressure is necessary, why diamonds don't fall off trees. You know what I'm saying? You have to really, really hone all your energy into something that you're doing. And when I, or how I've like translated the position

that I'm in, it was never a pressure or a envious thing. It was always like a very homegrown, natural, inspirational thing. And like I said, pressure comes with anything you want to do, especially if you want to be great. I liked how you touched his shoulder when you said, Why you touching his shoulder when you said that? What the fuck?

What is going on here? What kind of pressure do you put on him? I put real pressure on him to be himself and to not follow the trends and to set his own stage, set his own lane because, you know, a lot of people naturally gravitate towards him because of his family. But my thing is I put the pressure on him

to distinguish who's who and what's what. Like a person might give him a gift, and I get on him about that gift. I'm like, yo, well, why did this person give you that gift? Like, why? Like, tell me the why. If you can't tell me the why, and you can't give you that gift? Like, why? You know, like, tell me the why. If you can't tell me the why and you can't give that person a gift back, don't take the gift.

Right. That's real. You know? Because people, they be setting up their plays and, you know, and it's a very, very scary world outside. Yeah, it's different, right? Yeah, it's different outside. Right. Well, we appreciate different, right? Yeah, it's different outside. Right, well, we appreciate you guys

for joining us. Ride with Drive, excuse me, with Swiss Beats. Where can they see this? Ride. It's a ride. Drive.

Ride. Come here. You can see Drive premiering November 16th on Hulu. Drive with Swiss Beats. Tune all the way in. All six episodes

will be dropping simultaneously so you can binge watch the whole thing. It's a zone. Absolutely. Well, we appreciate you guys for joining us. Make some noise for Swiss Beats and Nasir Dean, y'all. Zah, zah, zah.

I've never seen the audience. This is amazing. Nah, they do these nice little events from time to time. It's not little at all. I heard y'all doing some big things today. This is cool. Yeah, so this is Change for Change, where we give back to time. It's not little at all. I heard y'all doing some big things today. This is cool. Yeah, so this is Change for Change

where we give back to people. And what people did this time is they put a wish list of things that they needed for the holidays. And shout to Amazon, they provided their wish list for a lot of people.

Okay. So like even today, since you guys are here, I think we should do something special. Charlemagne, what you think? I'm all for it. Now for everybody that came here.

That's what we're here for. Yeah. Now, for everybody who put in a wish list and came here, put your hands up one time, and then you brought a person with you, right? Right? So, for you guys today, we're going to give everybody that signed up $1,000. That's right. Hold up.

Where you sign up at? Yeah, fuck. Where do we do that? But not only that. The people that you came with, we're going to give $1,000 too. That's right. Hey, hey, hey. See?

One of y'all didn't want to come. Hey. See? One of y'all had to get begged to come here. Now look. This is the big money show. This is the big money show. So we appreciate you guys for coming.

We got a lot of cool stuff for you as well show. So we appreciate you guys for coming. We got a lot of cool stuff for you as well. And just say thank you guys for rocking with us and riding with us. And thank you to Amazon, man. Thank you for Amazon. We really appreciate you guys.

We couldn't do none of this without Amazon. So thank you very much. So ladies and gentlemen, Nasir, Swiss Beats, we are The Breakfast Club. Peace. Zone, zone.

Yeah. Wake that ass up. Early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Peace. Zone, zone. Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club. As a kid, I really do remember having these dreams and visions, but you just don't know what is going to come for you. Alicia shares her wisdom on growth, gratitude, and the power of love. I forgive myself. It's okay. Have grace, gratitude, and the power of love. I forgive

myself. It's okay. Have grace for yourself. You're trying your best and you're gonna figure out the rhythm of this thing. Alicia Keys, like you've never heard her before. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.