Home : News : Cassidy: Battle Against Papoose Denied By Swizz Beatz..

Cassidy has been eating MCs for years. His lyrical pedigree is one of the best in the game. But out of the new dudes new meaning they never released an album, Papoose is looked at as one of the greats. Well, what if the two battled? Wow. Apparently a showdown was being talked about at the battle breeding ground, New York’s Fight Klub, where MCs’ freestyling skills are tested and the results are released on DVD. But don’t count on it ever happening.
“That’s not going down,” Swizz Beatz said. “I’m not gonna let Cassidy get pressured into doing that. He’s at a point in his career where he feels comfortable and he’s focusing on taking it to the next level. Unless it’s something he’s doing that’s benefiting himself — getting a check? He’s getting checks. Battling a person who don’t have an album out, what is that? It has to be like something me and Kanye did onstage. Make it an event. Papoose is doing his thing, let him focus on his album, we don’t want to interfere with that.

“That battle thing is a sport, it don’t sell albums,” he continued. “Cassidy’s been doing that sport since he was 12 years old. He went from the sport to the business side of it, to making albums. But he’s on his freestyle thing. He’ll bite a head off if he has to. But it has to be an event.”

Swizz has been on the road, promoting his One Man Band Man LP, which drops on August 21, and he says he wants the next thing we hear from that project to be an event as well.

“I’m listening to the album right now on the road, trying to figure out what’s the next move,” said Swizz, who currently has a split video for “Money in the Bank” and “Top Down.” “A lot of people like the ‘Top Down’ real heavy, so I might skip the ‘Money in the Bank’ remix and go right to the ‘Top Down’ remix. I’m strategic, so I’m traveling around to other cities and getting feedback. … I love being on the road, ’cause I get to study.”

Swizz says Common wanted to be on the “Money in the Bank” remix, and he’s already got verses from Eve and Elephant Man, among others. As far as “Top Down,” he already has some rhymes from Nas.

“The record was originally for Nas,” he explained. “I got Nas’ vocals already. But I can’t do Nas, and his energy is not right on there. It would be dead weight. No disrespect, but it can’t be dead weight if I can’t make it feel like reality. I need the sh– crazy. I need to shoot a video! It’s gotta be another ‘It’s Me B*tches,’ but bigger. I could easily pull a Nas card and have people be like, ‘Nas is spazzing on the verse.’ But it has to be a movie. I got it. It just gotta make sense. I can get Nas, Jay-Z and Jadakiss on that. I can do that. It’s light work, but it’s gotta make sense.”