For Kasseem Dean, the Grammy Award-winning rapper and producer best known as Swizz Beatz, furniture and family go hand in hand. He remembers, as a kid growing up in the Bronx, the squeak of the plastic that covered his grandmother’s couch and the ritual that accompanied her record cabinet, which also conveniently concealed adults-only barware.
‘Furniture’s always been a language of family,’ Dean tells Wallpaper* from his home in Harlem, one of several the mogul owns alongside his wife, fellow Grammy-winner Alicia Keys. ‘For me growing up, it was like, “Come sit down, come have a talk.” But furniture was always to be respected as well.’
All of those memories, not to mention decades spent amassing one of the world’s most significant collections of Black art, have informed Dean’s latest venture, a furniture collection in partnership with the contemporary home decor brand CB2. The collection, which comprises furniture, lighting and decorative accessories, is appropriately named for the producer’s family: Casa Dean. ‘I didn't want to just do something just to do it,’ Dean says. ‘My thing was more like, if we're gonna do it, what's the concept? What hole are we filling? And how can this inspire people?’
‘I didn't want to just do something just to do it... how can this inspire people?’
Swizz Beatz
Dean’s fascination with design grew as he found success as a teenager, first as a DJ and later, at the ripe age of 18, the producer of DMX’s hit ‘Ruff Ryders' Anthem’. Dean jokingly recalls decorating his first home: ‘At that time there was no taste involved. It was just like, is it expensive? OK, I need that couch. What's the name brand of it? Gucci? OK, let's get it.’
But as his renown grew, Dean began to develop his own taste. ‘My style has grown tremendously throughout the years from travelling and seeing different walks of life,’ he says. ‘I'm just a creature of culture.’
In the Casa Dean collection, those sensibilities manifest in the line’s variety of colours, textures and silhouettes. There’s a curvaceous chair in a woolly taupe shearling; a linear console table topped with red enamel; a green velvet modular sofa with a gently swooping silhouette; artwork created in collaboration with artist Megan Gabrielle Harris; and bubbly barware in smoked crystal.
‘I love where I landed with the diversity of the collection and the colours and the palettes,’ Dean says. ‘That took guidance. That took being open-minded and not just coming in with the fake celebrity energy. I was more of a student.’
That’s because designing furniture didn’t come into the picture until recently. Keys’ nail tech, the celebrity manicurist Dawn Sterling, introduced Dean to a mutual connection at CB2. ‘Next thing you know, I was in Chicago looking at fabrics,’ the rapper jokes.
Working alongside designer Evan Jerry of Studio Anansi, the collection began to evolve. ‘Swizz was especially thoughtful about the experience of each piece. How does a sofa sit? How does a material feel? How does the furniture encourage people to gather and connect?’ says Andrea Erman, CB2’s senior director of design and development for housewares. ‘He was equally interested in the emotional experience of a space as he was in the visual impact.’
‘People take furniture so [lightly], but just with this hands-on process with CB2 and their amazing team that they surrounded me with, I really got a front-row seat to the movie called “furniture”,’ Dean adds. The Dean family even got a front-row seat: he and Keys would review drawings and photos at the family dinner table.
Each piece in the Casa Dean collection is meant to foster what Dean calls ‘the creative home’. There are items that especially resonate with him, like the ‘Lam-Louie’ credenza, named for his father, who also worked as a DJ alongside hip-hop pioneer Cool Herc, that doubles as a DJ set-up. And a chair that’s designed exclusively for solo daydreaming. His favourite colour, British racing green, pops up throughout.
‘I just want people to just tune into themselves with this collaboration,’ Dean reflects. ‘The world is moving so fast and there's so much uncertainty that when you sit on this couch, or when you plug your set-up into this DJ set, or put some ice in this amazing bucket, you're doing it to reflect yourself.’
