Swizz Beatz: How to support and celebrate living artists | TED

38,992 views ・ 2020-07-14

TED


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00:13
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)
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