‘Verzuz’: Swizz Beats “never gonna say no” to possibility of Diddy and Dr Dre battle

Swizz Beatz has said he won’t write off a prospective Verzuz battle between Diddy and Dr Dre.

The musician and producer, who works with Timbaland on the rap battle web series for Instagram Live and Apple Music, said in a new interview that a face-off between the veteran rappers could happen.

With Timbaland joining him in the TMZ Live chat, Beatz said he wasn’t “gonna say no” to the possibility of a Dre and Diddy battle because previous fights between rap stars have happened that were beyond what he’d imagined.

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“I’m never gonna say no anymore,” Swizz responded to TMZ when asked the hypothetical question about Dre and Diddy.

“That’s something different,” he said in contrast to the interviewee’s proposed idea of a Diddy and Jay-Z battle (which Timbaland shot down as “slim chance”).

“Everybody has these magical wishes that they want [to see on Verzuz],” Beatz continued. “But the universe has been bringing these magical wishes so I can’t even say what’s not gonna happen ’cause a lot of the Verzuz, just like the last one we’ve seen, everybody said that it couldn’t happen. Right? So now, we just let the universe naturally make things happen.”

Last week Verzuz announced that it had broken its streaming records with the season two high profile fight between longstanding rivals Gucci Mane and Jeezy. Up to 1.8million viewers tuned in to the battle, and 7billion impressions were counted.






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Verzuz competitors take it in turns playing a song from a list of 20 from their back catalogue as fans, friends and fellow artists watch on. A winner is later decided by Timbaland and Swizz Beatz.