Swizz Beatz has responded to the strong reactions elicited by the announcement that he and Timbaland forged a partnership between Verzuz and Elon Musk’s X.
On Friday (June 21), the Bronx-born producer shared a photoset captured in Cannes, France — where he and Timbaland announced during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity that all future Verzuz content will be released exclusively on X.
“Don’t play in our faces”
Sharing several images of himself and his Verzuz co-founder, Beatz wrote: “We will show you better than tell you.”
Unfortunately, the post did not seem to sway critics.
“It’s cool to ‘show us’ but don’t play in our faces and act like folks don’t have a valid reason to question this partnership,” wrote one commenter.
To which Beatz replied, “But nobody said anything before we been on that platform since Verzuz started.”
Another commenter wrote, “Yall said you wouldn’t sell out and yall went and did exactly that.”
Beatz then responded, “Trust me that was the last thing we did. Relax. You will understand in 1 min.”
Many criticized the partnership immediately after its unveiling, arguing that Elon Musk has a history of racial discrimination allegations and therefore shouldn’t be embraced by Black-owned businesses.
At the Cannes Lions International Festival, Beatz explained his decision to switch the Verzuz platform to X. “X played a big role in Verzuz – it was the conversation. Now we’re bringing the visual to the conversation in one place. It was a natural fit to have Verzuz on X because it was there already. We’re bringing the visual and the comments together.”
Both companies agreed on a “mutually beneficial alliance” where Beatz and Timbaland maintain full ownership and creative control, while X receives exclusive distribution rights.
Timbaland said he’s thrilled to expand their viewership through X, which has more than 300 millions monthly active users. Viewers will be able to watch Verzuz for free.
“Our goal has always been to bring Verzuz to the world which we can now do bigger than ever,” he said.
Verzuz came to life in 2020 after a friendly competition between Beatz and Timbaland on social media started off to entertain homebound fans during the pandemic. But their platform eventually evolved into a place where some of music’s biggest stars competed against each other in the same fashion.