Why Does Alicia Keys’ Son Have Production Credits on a Kendrick Lamar Song?

If you’ve ever taken a look at the credited producers on Kendrick Lamar’s 2016 song “​untitled 07 | 2014-2016,” also known as “Levitate,” you would have seen the name Egypt Daoud Dean show up. At the time the song was made, Dean was five years old. So, why on Earth was he helping world-famous rapper Kendrick Lamar produce a song from his new album?

Well, Dean is the first of two children between R&B star Alicia Keys and rap producer Swizz Beatz, who married the same year Dean was born (2010). When Swizz attended Super Bowl 50 in 2016 in Santa Clara, California, he brought Dean along with him to sit in his suite with fellow music icons like Jay-Z, Usher, and Kendrick Lamar.

At the game, Lamar and Dean shared an intimate conversation, Swizz recalled in a new interview with Jennifer Hudson on April 25. Even though Swizz didn’t want Lamar to be bothered with his young son, Lamar said their discussion helped him get over writer’s block that he was experiencing at the time.

“They kicked it off at the Super Bowl game, and I looked and him and Kendrick was talking for like 40 minutes,” Swizz told Hudson. “I went over and said to Kendrick, ‘Is he bothering you? Should I move him? I know you enjoying yourself.’ He said, ‘No. Swizz, I had writer’s block and what Egypt is telling me is helping me deal with something.’ I was like, ‘Well man, he’s five years old.’ Still to this day, I don’t know what he was helping him deal with, but I let it happen. He definitely charged him. Egypt got some money off that record.”

Just about a month after Dean and Lamar first spoke (March 2016), Lamar put out his album untitled unmastered, full of prior demo tracks or songs that didn’t make previous albums. “​untitled 07 | 2014-2016,” a two-part track that saw Swizz earn a production credit along with his son, would go on to reach No. 90 on the Billboard Hot 100. After this, Swizz and Lamar would work together one other time on Swizz’s 2018 track “Something Dirty/Pic Got Us” with Jadakiss and Styles P.

As for his son, Dean would develop a hobby for music following his Lamar collaboration. When he was 11 years old, he would lend vocals to a song by his mom titled “Over The Rainbow,” which landed on her 2021 EP Sweet Dreams. This was his first and still most recent vocal contribution to any song.

“It’s beautiful,” Swizz told Hudson about Dean gaining an interest in music. “The one thing that we don’t do is force things on [our kids]. You know, we don’t force art, we don’t force music. What we force is good intentions… As long as you have a good intention on what you’re doing, we’ll support it. But it’s not like, ‘You have to be this way.’ We have to let the kids be who they gonna be, but guide them in the right way and not put the pressure on them.”

Photo by Ollie Millington/Redferns