Photograph by Alex Martinez
In 2023, SwaVay (given name, André Khaliel Jones) was on his first national tour as an opening act for J.I.D. and Smino. Somewhere in middle America, watching snow fall outside his tour-bus window, he compared himself to the headliners. Damn, he thought, why can they do 5,000 people a night and I can’t?
On that bus ride, it occurred to him that he had been modeling his career after the rap greats who came before him. While imitation is a sincere form of flattery, he realized it wouldn’t turn him into a headliner. I never gave SwaVay a real chance, he remembers thinking.
SwaVay, 29, grew up a hip-hop–obsessed kid in Kirkwood and around Cobb County. His father listened to Snoop Dogg, but SwaVay himself idolized Bow Wow, who made his So So Def (and chart) debut at age 13. At the time, “a lot of artists that were coming out felt like superheroes,” he says. “So me being a kid, looking at a kid damn near being a superhero, it was everything.”
In 2016, SwaVay dropped his “Loyal” music video, a tribute to the 2002 Bow Wow movie Like Mike. The next year, he signed with producer Metro Boomin’s label, Boominati Worldwide. But he left after a few years and signed to Def Jam Recordings before going independent in 2023. He isn’t “anti-industry,” he says. “It’s just that the sh*t gotta make sense for me.”
Going indie meant that SwaVay didn’t have to settle on a deal—or a sound. After that 2023 tour, he went from strictly rapping to recording “All My Friends,” a country ballad. “Even to this day, when I sing [that song onstage], people are like, Bro, what?. . . I didn’t even know you did this,” he says. “But it was me being like, Nah, bro. I’m going to be fearless.”
Concertgoers aren’t the only people taking notice. SwaVay was one of the only newcomers featured on Jermaine Dupri’s soundtrack for the 2025 docuseries Magic City: An American Fantasy. The rapport between the two continued with SwaVay’s latest project, The Prelude, released in May; the first voice you hear on the album is Dupri’s, declaring on “Back to the Trap Freestyle” that SwaVay is “one of the coldest.” On the same intro track, SwaVay raps about the climb it took to get here: “I defeated my blueprint—I’m supposed to be dead or out spending my life out in Rice” (the Fulton County Jail on Rice Street).
SwaVay may still be an opening act, but now he has folks like Dupri in his corner. In the dressing room for the Atlanta magazine cover, Dupri checks in with a knock on the door. “You good?” he asks. SwaVay smiles; he’s straight off a red-eye after a North American tour for producer James Blake, wearing gel eye patches to freshen up. “I’m good,” he replies.
For SwaVay, it’s a full-circle moment to work with the Atlanta legend who was once his childhood rap idol. “A fan gifted me a vintage Lil Bow Wow shirt the other day,” he says. “I was like, ‘Bro, thank you so much for this. You don’t even know. This means a lot.’”
Listen
“Elevate,” also featuring Denzel Curry, Cordae, and Trevor Rich, from the soundtrack for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
SwaVay’s Favorite Jermaine Dupri production
“Roc the Mic” by Bow Wow (2009)
His Video Inspiration
“Lil Bow Wow’s [second album] Doggy Bag came out when I was in kindergarten— I was watching every music video! I got locked into music really young.”
Instagram
@swavay
Back to “Legends Look Ahead.”
This article appears in our November 2026 issue.
