Shwayze

Countering the premise of the Jamie Kennedy film Malibu's Most Wanted—that the affluent, overwhelmingly white coastal enclave produces only privileged adolescents striking gangsta attitudes—actual Malibu resident Shwayze presents a different reality. His stage name playfully alters the surname of the actor from Dirty Dancing and Roadhouse. Musical guidance arrives from Cisco Adler, son of millionaire record producer Lou Adler, who gained notoriety from a widely circulated unflattering nude photograph taken during his relationship with television personality Mischa Barton and from his appearance on the short-lived VH1 series The Rock Life.

Shwayze asserts that his childhood unfolded in a relatively rough trailer park within one of Malibu’s less affluent pockets. Born Aaron Smith in 1986, he was reportedly assisting his handyman grandfather in 2005 when he launched an unplanned onstage freestyle with drummer Alex Orbison ahead of a local Whitestarr performance. Whitestarr’s singer-songwriter Adler, sufficiently impressed, began working with the young rapper. The resulting songs, co-written and produced by Adler, blended a relaxed, largely acoustic approach comparable to hip-hop Jack Johnson, quite unlike the glossy Southern rock revivalism of Adler’s own group.

Shwayze secured a contract with Suretone, a Geffen Records imprint, in 2007. The self-titled debut appeared the following year, led by the single “Don’t Be Shy,” after which the artist joined the 2008 Vans Warped Tour. That album spawned the hit singles “Corona and Lime” and “Buzzin’,” the latter supplying the title for the duo’s brief MTV reality series that ran during summer 2008. A year later they issued the electro-tinged album Let It Beat, which featured the single “Get U Home.”

After several free mixtapes and EPs, they delivered Island in the Sun in 2011 on their own Bananabeat Records imprint, crediting the project Shwayze & Cisco Adler to sidestep confusion. Their partnership concluded after the release. Shwayze’s first project without Adler was the 2012 EP Shwayzed and Confused, followed by the full-length Shwayze Summer in 2013. The EP King of the Summer arrived in 2015.