Gaming and hip-hop have always been next door neighbors and are quickly becoming best friends. The two elements go together like milk and cookies, so it was a no-brainer for multi-platinum recording artist Swae Lee to join esports organization XSET where their aim is to bring diversity to competitive gaming.
Founded by former FaZe Clan President Greg Selkoe along with the assistance of Grammy Award-winning producer Clinton Sparks as co-owner, XSET is pushing the culture forward by fusing the music and gaming industry. Truthfully, it’s been long overdue. In a socially-distanced celebration from the vibey Hollywood Hills Triller House, Swae exclusively shared with Uproxx why it made sense for him to be part of the movement.
“To me, it’s just another way to just have fun with the kids and bring two worlds together,” Swae told Uproxx. “Keep people informed of what’s going on and what I got going on with the music. I can even reach them in different ways that I wouldn’t be able to reach just doing music. Like we can sit down and play some games. They might win a sweepstakes with XSET where they fly out to LA and we just play Grand Theft Auto all day, and just do whatever.”
For Swae, he prefers getting busy on the PlayStation because it’s “just more ergonomic for the boy.” The melodic rap star is looking forward to the release of the PS5, though like most of us, missed the pre-orders.
“I bring my whole portable PlayStation set on tour,” he said. “It’s like a laptop, and it’s a suitcase. I can play it anywhere on tour. Anywhere in the world. It’s portable. I can play it in the airport and everything.”
There’s also plans on releasing new music, which has been teased recently by Swae and Slim Jxmmi. While Swae continues to hop on features including Trey Songz’ Back Home track “Rain,” which he says was made one summer in Vegas, fans are going to have to wait for any full-length projects like the highly-anticipated Sremm Life 4.
“I don’t even like this year,” he said. “I might wait ‘till 2021 to even drop the project, but I’ve just been giving them singles and features. We definitely just keeping the music in the atmosphere. I’m coming to drop my official. And Jxmmi’s dropping his. We’re both dropping Rae Sremmurd, of course.”
Don’t expect a Migos and Rae Sremmurd Verzuz anytime soon, either. Though, Swae admits, “It would be turnt as a motherfucker.”
“If they approach us with a bag, but I don’t even want to put that out there,” he said. “That’d be lit. That was just like some fun stuff that we could do.”