Today, lyrics don’t matter much in rap, says US rapper Swifty McVay

American rapper Swifty McVay, who was part of the band D12 along with Eminem, was in Chennai recently to launch the soundtrack of his American indie film, Devil’s Night: Dawn Of The Nain Rouge. The rapper spoke to us about his experience working on the project, rap in India, how the musical form has evolved over the years, and his spiritual side.
“I have featured on many soundtracks, but it is only with this film that I’ve been able to perform and oversee the whole project,” begins McVay and adds, “I’m not the music producer here, but I brought in artistes who could bring the required flavour.”
He says it was fun to pick music, bounce off ideas and come up with something that went with the concept of the film.“I not only had to write the lyrics, but also got to collaborate with producers. For the creativity part, it helped me stretch my ideas a bit. I kind of mixed my style — hardcore hip-hop, not gangster hip-hop — with the concept of the film. I could come up with music from the perspective of the monster and against it as well,” he elaborates.
McVay has also acted in the film. He has been part of a few projects, like The Longest Yard with Adam Sandler, Chris Rock and Burt Reynolds, and a few other indie films, but says theatre is his thing. “I’ve been doing plays much before I acted in films. As far as this film is concerned, to be able to play a character that I’ve never played so far, as a mayor, was challenging,” he says.
The rapper admits he hasn’t heard much of Indian music or Indian artistes. “I’ve worked with a couple of Indian-origin artistes in the US, though. There is this rapper in Detroit who goes by the name of Lazarus (he is of Pakistani descent) and the artiste Hardcore. I believe hip hop in India is at his nascent stage,” he says.
Interestingly, he has worked with a musician with Indian roots in this film. Ashwin Ganesh, a self-taught musician, has composed one of the tracks in the film. “Ashwin had played some of his music to me and I was impressed. He is versatile. What I like about him is that he doesn’t stay in one lane as a music producer. His music has different types of flavours,” the rapper praises the young musician.
Quiz him how rap has evolved since his D12 days, and he says, “Back in my time, lyrics really, really counted. If you didn’t stand out lyrically, you didn’t stand a chance. The people who bought our albums were those who really appreciated the lyrics. Today, lyrics don’t matter that much. It’s all about the beats, the chorus… to make you dance, to groove. People are not really into the words. Rap stands for rhythm and poetry, but a lot of people don’t understand that if you don’t have a poetic sense of lyrics, it’s not going to stand for long. But today, it doesn’t seem to matter.”
Is he still in touch with the D12 members? “Yeah. But everybody is doing their own thing. Me and Kuniva are doing an album together. We still keep in touch with Eminem. We go to his studio to see what he’s working on, we play each other’s songs and ask what the others think about it,” he says.
One interesting thing about the rapper is that he is vegan and very spiritual. “I’ve wanted to be a rapper ever since I was little, and to have people being touched by my music was a dream come true. I have to give thanks to the higher power who made it happen. For Him to have opened those doors for me, I owed it to him to give him that praise. That’s where my deep spirituality stems from,” he signs off.