DeVante Swing

CTL-E-5761 · Person · musician · 1969–present

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07026 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-5761.

DeVante Swing, born Donald Earle DeGrate Jr. on 29 September 1969 in Hampton, Virginia, and raised from Charlotte, North Carolina, is an American producer and songwriter, the founding architect of Jodeci. He formed the group with his brother Dalvin DeGrate and the Hailey brothers, K-Ci and JoJo — two pairs of brothers — and served as its main songwriter and producer. Signed to Uptown Records in 1989 after auditioning for Andre Harrell, Jodeci debuted with Forever My Lady (1991), written and produced largely by DeVante with Al B. Sure!. In 1991 he founded the Swing Mob collective, whose members included Timbaland, Missy Elliott, Magoo and Ginuwine. His outside production includes 2Pac's "No More Pain," and Jodeci reunited for The Past, the Present, the Future (2015).

The record

• Also known as: Donald Earle DeGrate Jr., Donald DeGrate Jr., Mr. Dalvin (no — see notes)

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Census Intake Wave 1 — 747 Program, Wave 7; first packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no DeVante Swing entity in the live graph at 3,443 entities (exact / normalized / alias + token containment); ID CTL-E-5761 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 3 — Famous Birthdays ABSENT census, readiness rank 357 (Music Producers list). The census supplied the NAME ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — Black American producer. Vital status: LIVING — named as a living defendant in a 2024 lawsuit reported by Rolling Stone; Jodeci announced a 2026 anniversary tour. His personal participation in specific tour dates is NOT asserted: the tour statements consulted quote K-Ci and Mr. Dalvin only. STATISTICS (sourced, dated): Forever My Lady reached No. 1 on Billboard's Top R&B Albums chart and No. 18 on the Billboard 200, and is RIAA-certified 3× platinum — Essence/discography record, accessed 2026-10-16. MEDIA: photo HELD (candidate: Wikimedia Commons and label/press photography of this subject exists; no file page was read at file-page level in this pass, so no image is cleared — CTL-PHOTO-001; a CTL-created graphic is the standing alternative); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-5761-devante-swing.svg); video HELD (the Shorts Link Map catalog was checked by name and variants — no matching-entity CTL Short exists for this subject; the three catalog string-hits for "Ne-Yo" resolve to Nina Simone and John Coltrane rows, not Ne-Yo billings); audio HELD (no CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio; the subject's recordings are third-party copyrighted material). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Person records carry no map slot under the media-layer rule; maps attach to places and institutions.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created SVG (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced facts) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map catalog (checked by name and variants), and no official/em) | audio = HELD (No CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio at staging; the subject's own recordings are third-party )

Relationships

• Missy Elliott — related to
  Missy Elliott was a member of DeVante Swing's Swing Mob collective, founded 1991.
• Timbaland — related to
  Timbaland was a member of DeVante Swing's Swing Mob collective, founded 1991.

Sources

• Essence, Jodeci debut retrospective — two-brothers group composition; Uptown signing 1989; Forever My Lady No. 1 R&B albums and 3× platinum — https://www.essence.com/entertainment/jodecis-debut-album-turns-30/ (primary source · build store)
• Sportskeeda artist explainer — born Hampton, Virginia; Swing Mob membership incl. Timbaland and Missy Elliott; primary producer role — https://www.sportskeeda.com/us/music/news-who-devante-swing-jodeci-member-named-new-co-defendant-diddy-lawsuit (build store)
• Pollstar News (28 July 2026) — Jodeci 35th-anniversary US tour announcement; group-activity evidence — https://news.pollstar.com/2026/07/28/jodeci-announces-35th-anniversary-u-s-tour-celebrating-debut-album/ (build store)

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Record CTL-E-5761 · Combined Graph record U-07026 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 2 mapped relationships.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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