he's a horrible producer. he got put on when he barely even knew how to use that casio he had and never really progressed from there. the only reason he became a household name is because of the hype dmx enjoyed at the time, and that would have never happened without dame grease. dame grease was the main producer on it's dark and hell is hot, but he didn't want to sign the contract that ruff ryders wanted him to sign and give them a percentage of his production earnings. that's why they blackballed him. without dame grease they needed a new inhouse producer and that's why they started to push their 18 year old nephew. he was cheap, he was available and he was willing to sign a management contract.
the only problem was that not only had swizz just started out learning how to produce, but as main inhouse producer he had to suddenly lace the whole ruff ryders camp with beats. so instead of releasing the occasional banger that everybody who begins to produce creates from time to time while learning the craft (ruff ryders anthem), he more or less released every trash beat he ever did and put whack shyt together in 15 minute by pushing three keys on his synthesizer. since people ate that shyt up, there was no need to get better and labels were happy because he didn't use samples, so he reduced to costs of production.
i remember how disappointed i was back when i bought flesh of my flesh. i got home hype as fukk, put the cd in and listened in disbelief like, what the fukk is this, who produced this shyt? it really speaks volumes about the charisma and craft of dmx that ruff ryders enjoyed the run that they had, because he was able to overcome those whack ass beats he was forced to use after his first album.