Swizz Beatz seems unbothered by, even supportive of, wife Alicia Keys' Super Bowl halftime performance with Usher that some have characterized as not respecting marriage.
He appeared to address the controversy on Instagram the morning after the 2024 Super Bowl. The handsy choreography, in particular, is why the "My Boo" duo is under fire by some fans for their halftime performance Feb. 11.
“Usher and Alicia keys on stage hope Swizz beatz dey ok with this,” one person posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
“Imagine someone hugging your wife like Usher hugged Alicia Keys,” another wrote.
"Usher knows he outta pocket for violating Alicia Keys at the superbowl last night," someone else said.
Swizz Beatz redirected the conversation back to the "amazing" performance in his Instagram post.
"Y’all talking about the wrong damn thing !!!" he wrote.
"Y’all don’t see that amazing dress covering the entire stadium. Tonight's performance was nothing but amazing with 2 amazing Giants," he continued, referring to the couple's new art exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum.
“Congrats @usher and my love @aliciakeys that song is a classic 🤍 We don’t do negative vibes on this side we make history," Swizz Beatz added.
Swizz Beatz and Keys' new exhibition of roughly 100 works from their private collection opened at the Brooklyn Museum Feb. 10, and they told TODAY's Hoda Kotb all about it in an interview that aired on Feb. 7.
"This is a portion of our collection that we’ve been collecting for the past 20 years," the "Fallin'" singer said.
Her husband added, "We collect from our heart. It’s not transactional for us. All of the artists that’s living, that's in the show, are actually friends. They come to our house and stay at our house."
Their exhibition at the museum, titled "Giants," features colossal-size works from about 40 Black artists from around the world. The famed producer said the pieces are purposely larger than life to make a point.
"It’s very rare you see artists of color displaying 30-foot works," the Ruff Ryders alum said. "When people walk into the show, we want them to feel like we can be as giant as we want to be."
The "No One" singer added, "It’s meant to also remind you that you belong in these spaces."
"You belong here," she continued. "We deserve to be on all the walls of all the giant spaces. And that, I think, is maybe what just hit me in the gut just now."
The industry couple married in 2010 and share two children together.
Read on for some relationship highlights.
How did Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz meet?
The "Girl On Fire" singer wrote in her 2020 memoir, "More Myself," that she met her husband, whose real name is Kasseem Daoud Dean, when he was 16 and she was about 14. They had a mutual friend who insisted to Keys that she meet him, the singer explained, and they did eventually meet outside a local high school in the Bronx. Keys said that she initially rebuffed his invitation to connect more.
"We talked for a minute about nothing deep, and then as I walked off, he asked if we could exchange numbers," Keys wrote. "I was like, 'Nah, I’m good. I’ll just see you when I see you.'"
Years later, in 1998, Keys said they "ended up in the same circles at various awards shows and industry events" after Swizz Beatz created the beat for DMX's famous "Ruff Ryders Anthem." They eventually worked on some songs together, which Keys said she initially did not enjoy because he was "totally irritating."
Keys described later reluctantly agreeing to lunch, which Swizz Beatz was late to, but he brought her a pair of sunglasses in a bag that was decorated with a piece of art that Keys liked, she wrote. He also gifted her with a painting of a little piano that had paintbrushes on the keys, and he attached it to the outside of her car while she was in the restaurant waiting on him.
"'When I saw this,'” Keys remembered him explaining, "'it seemed like the perfect representation of our friendship. You’re the keys, I’m the brushes.' When he’d purchased it from a street vendor a few days earlier, he explained, he’d planned to give it to me. But in order to prop it up on my car roof, he had to arrive at the restaurant after me so that my car would already be there. It was such a nice gesture."
More time passed, and there was more back and forth, but the two finally became a couple thereafter.
When did Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz get married?
They got married in 2010 under the compromise they reached when Keys said she "had never seen" herself getting married, and Swizz Beatz balked at the "hippy-dippy arrangement" she offered.
"We’d marry the old-fashioned way. But we’d put our own spin on the vows," Keys wrote in her memoir. "We finally announced our engagement. We also shared news of the pregnancy when I was about four months along, and the public declaration seemed to cause my stomach to pop. We made plans for an intimate ceremony in Corsica, France, near the end of July."
When did Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz have kids?
The couple welcomed son Egypt Daoud Dean on Oct. 14, 2010, and they later had another son, Genesis Ali Dean, on Dec. 27, 2014.
Keys famously performed "Un-thinkable (I'm Ready)" at the 2010 BET Awards while pregnant with Egypt. She shared the origins of his name in her memoir.
"'The Egypt trip was such a defining moment in your life,'" Keys recalled Swizz Beatz telling her in her memoir. “'Wouldn’t that be amazing as a name?' It felt right the moment I heard it, as did adding in Swizz Beatz’s middle name, Daoud. Two days later, I left the hospital cradling Egypt Daoud Dean, my constant reminder of a life altering pilgrimage that taught me what liberation feels like."
Swizz Beatz also named Genesis.
“What about Genesis?” Keys remembered her husband suggesting. “'He’d recently had a dream about new beginnings, he explained, and the word genesis had been part of it. The more I thought about it, the more I loved it. We settled on Genesis, along with the middle name Ali — pronounced like the legendary boxer's name, yet also my nickname."
Swizz Beatz has three more kids — Prince Nasir Dean, 23, Kasseem Dean Jr., 17, and Nicole Dean, 15 — from previous relationships. Swizz Beatz shares Prince with his former partner Nicole Levy, Kasseem with ex-wife Mashonda Tifrere, and Nicole with singer Jahna Sebastian. Swizz Beatz and Tifrere divorced in 2010, according to People.
