Swizz Beatz on the Met Gala Theme, His Moncler Suit, and Keeping Your Toes Covered

It’s not every day that you get to laugh your ass off with a legend. Yet on a Friday in May, there Swizz Beatz and I were—cracking up as we chatted about his style qualms, the etymology of his name, and… his toes?

Yes, toes. But more on that later. Let me give you some context first. Ahead of the first Monday in May—otherwise known as the day of the Met Gala in the fashion-verse—the legendary producer, rapper, songwriter, and DJ hopped on a Zoom with me to talk to me about his custom Moncler x EE72 by Edward Enninful navy-and-red-striped suit for the evening.

“This year, the theme [Superfine: Tailoring Black Style] is us, so it’s easy. The other themes have been harder because you’re pulling from different eras that you weren’t around for, different styles that you might not have been familiar with,” Swizz says. “I love the way that we are able to be creative this year with my wife [Alicia Keys] and my outfits—I hope people will love it. And even if they don’t, we love it. We’re gonna have a good time.”

If we’re being honest here, the only opinion that really matters is that of his wife. “Listen, my wife has the final say on everything because that’s just how it is. She respects my style and taste, but I care about how she thinks that I look, so I’m like, 'Babe, how does it look? Are we good? Okay, done.' We both felt like that with this look, and I can't wait to do our next fitting. It’s going to be super amazing.”

"Everybody I knew in my hood had dream jobs, and I think I’m probably the 0.1 percent that was able to actually do my dream job."

As the conversation went on, it took some twists and turns that nobody saw coming. From being a peeved-out Virgo to discussing the biggest softie he’s ever worked with (and this is a crazy one), chatting with Swizz was one of the funniest and most genuine conversations I’ve had. Let’s run it back.

"I've always been a fan of the brand—independently from even meeting and knowing the whole team. I love how they took something as simple as a goose down bomber coat and made it like the international thing to wear when it’s cold. And now they’re switching it up, stepping outside of the box, with the Met Gala, the Genius program—which my wife did an amazing collaboration with—and I just love that they have the disruptive instincts to be different from a creative standpoint."

"I can’t wait to wear one of my brooches, because I have a new collection of brooches and cufflinks with a jewelry brand out of Brazil called Ara Vartanian. It took five years for us to complete this project. I just want to see the outfit again so I can pair it with a brooch and cufflinks. I love accessories."

"My favorite thing in my closet are my comfortable sweatsuits that I can just lounge and be lazy in. I've been dressing up so much for events that I love just being in a super soft sweatsuit with some soft slippers, and just doing nothing. Cozy wear is my favorite thing.

"The things that I would never wear—see, I'm saying that, and I'll probably wear it tomorrow because I'm just so spontaneous and can change my mind at any given second—but what I wouldn't probably wear anytime in the future is a suit with my toes hanging out of the sandals. I got pretty cool feet, but it just feels naked or something. Like when I see people with a full suit on and just toes hanging out. I’m just not there yet."

"I’m a Virgo so a lot of things, man. Like my kids putting on deodorant without washing up. I just can’t—like why would you do something like that? That just goes against all of the rules, like you are supposed to put on deodorant after you wash up. But that’s just kids being kids, but like what would make you spray all of that cologne and put on all of that deodorant after basketball practice. You’re putting on a brand new outfit with your old body smell. For me, I can’t do dirty fingernails. I will pull over the car, I just can’t do it. And I’m from the South Bronx, like I’m used to the struggle, but I just can’t do dirty fingernails."

"Hahahaha, that's a good one. Well, growing up in the Bronx, I used to wear K-Swiss sneakers all the time. It was the thing when I was wearing them with the fat shoelaces when I was in the break dance crew called GTR, Guaranteed to Rock. I was the youngest, and I used to always wear K-Swiss sneakers. Then Jordans started coming out, different sneakers started coming, and I didn't want the name anymore. So I started making up different names, and people would just ignore me and still call me Swiss. I’m like, “Yo, my name is Loco. I’m not Swiss anymore.” But they just kept calling me that, and I could never get away from it. Then I started DJing, DJ K-Swiss, and I was like man, I don’t really even wear K-Swiss anymore. When I started doing beats I had to change my name again and they didn’t want to hear none of the names that I came up with. Swiss, Swiss, Swiss. So then I was like, “All, right, Swiss Beats.” But then I was like, “Man, I have to do something different.” So I changed all the Ss to Zs. Now I felt like I had a unique name that didn’t have anything to do with the shoes anymore… Although I did try to buy the company two times, just for old times' sake."

"My favorite thing in my closet are my comfortable sweatsuits that I can just lounge and be lazy in. I’ve been dressing up so much for events that I love just being in a super soft sweatsuit with some soft slippers, and just doing nothing," the producer says.

"You know, my brother DMX, he bark like a dog and do all this yelling—but he just want to hug and play with remote control cars all day. His music side was definitely aggressive, and it was how he was expressing himself—going through what he went through as a child and what he was battling in different ways. But Earl was—you know, we call him Earl, which is his real name—loved to play with remote control cars, loved to play pool, loved to watch South Park. There wasn’t nothing tough about him chilling. And I actually loved that part of him because no matter what, he always had his inner child. Especially with him feeling like he didn’t have a childhood, so for him to go back and relive those things and play with toys—What are you doing, playing with GI Joe?—yeah I see him looking down, he’s mad I just said that one."

"If I wasn’t doing music, I might not have a job. Growing up where I grew up, you might have wanted a dream job, but getting to it was a whole different thing. There were super limited resources. Everybody I knew in my hood had dream jobs, and I think I'm probably the 0.1 percent that was able to actually do my dream job. I didn't realize that until I got older that there weren't programs set up, there weren’t any educational systems. The teacher used to put the work on the board and leave the class. But I later learned that education was the key to that freedom, and education was the key to be able to think your way out of poverty and come up with a great plan. And that’s why I promote education so much. I just recently got honored by Harvard yesterday for the Entrepreneur of the Year Award. When you’re building something, you think you need all of these people, and that’s because you have a lack of knowledge in that particular space. So by doubling down on learning how to build your mind and be able to build companies, it just helps."

"Listen, my wife has the final say on everything because that’s just how it is. She respects my style and taste, but I care about how she thinks that I look, so I’m like, ’Babe, how does it look? Are we good? Okay, done.’"