Swizz Beatz

Swizz Beatz, born Kasseem Daoud Dean in the Bronx, New York City, on 13 September 1978, is an American record producer, rapper and songwriter. ¹ He rose through his family's record label Ruff Ryders Entertainment, went on to work with artists including DMX, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Eminem and Kanye West, and has won one Grammy Award from five nominations. ¹

He was raised by his mother in the North East Bronx after his parents separated, first saw his father at a post-office job in the South Bronx, worked in his father's nightclub in Atlanta as a teenager, and began his music career as a DJ in 1994. ¹ By the end of the decade he had become a producer and artist on Ruff Ryders, selling more than 18 tracks; with DMX he produced "Ruff Ryders' Anthem" for the 1998 album It's Dark and Hell Is Hot, and he moved toward solo production for his protégé Cassidy, first signed to his own label, Full Surface Records, in 2001. ¹ His releases include the compilation Swizz Beatz Presents G.H.E.T.T.O. Stories (2002), the solo album One Man Band Man (2007), which reached number 7 on the US Billboard 200 and sold 45,000 copies in its first week, and Poison (2018), executive produced by J. Cole. ¹ His production credits include Beyoncé's "Ring the Alarm" and "Check on It", T.I.'s "Bring Em Out", Drake's "Fancy", and Lil Wayne's "A Milli" (2008). ¹ He was named the inaugural Producer in Residence at New York University in 2010, became a trustee of the Brooklyn Museum in 2015 and chairman of its board of trustees, and co-created the Verzuz webcast series with Timbaland in 2020. ¹

As an entrepreneur he has held creative-director roles with Lotus, Reebok, Kidrobot and Monster, and he co-founded the Dean Collection with his wife Alicia Keys, an organisation supporting living artists through exhibitions and initiatives. ¹ As a performer he has appeared as a guest artist on records by many other artists, including works by Mariah Carey, Yung Wun, Project Pat, Mustafa Sandal and Gwen Stefani. ¹

This section sets out different positions as reported in the sources. It is not a verdict by the museum.

His faith as the sources state it. Neither the English nor the Arabic article states any religion or affiliation for him anywhere. ^{1 2} Wikidata's only religion value for him is Islam stated generically, which is one structured-data value naming no legal school; no source names a madhhab for him, so his record carries his faith as unknown. ³

Family life as reported. He married the singer and actress Mashonda Tifrere in 2004, with whom he has one son, and later married Alicia Keys in 2010, with whom he has two sons; he also has children from earlier relationships. ¹

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.