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 Mobb Deep, Nas, Fat Joe, Big Pun, Dilated Peoples, Nina Sky, Cypress Hill, Capone-N-Norega, The Lox, Redman, Method Man, Pharaoh Monch, 50 Cent, Eminem, and everyone's favorite rapper, Lil Wayne. At first glance, it may be hard to imagine how all of these rappers could be connected, but with a second look and a little detective work, you'll see that they've all worked with producer The Alchemist in some way or another. Whether it's getting a beat from him, going on tour with him, having him as your DJ, or being featured on some of his own work, they have all been a part of The Alchemist's career and there's so many more artists that he's worked with that haven't been mentioned. ALC has been a relevant producer in the game for ten years and he's definitely had in impact for the better. He's worked with everyone from top tier stars to burgeoning artists, and has created a stable of work that competes with the best in the beat game.
BallerStatus.com: First thing what's going on with you as far as current projects go?
Alchemist: Chemical Warfare album for the top of the year and right before that Gang Green Album with me and Oh No. If you're not familiar with Oh No, he's from the West Coast. He's actually Madlib's brother. He's super nice with the beats, the rhymes ... we collaborated on a project together, and we got a whole album together. It's called Gang Green like the disease. That, Chemical Warfare; also Evidence and I are doing the Step Brothers project. I don't know when that's coming out but it's coming.
BallerStatus.com: How did you get together for that Gang Green album?
Alchemist: It's like just through some mutual friends. We did a show together one night and we just kind of linked. He sent me a joint one day and I sent an email to New York and it was crazy. I got one and it made me want to do something different, so I sent him a joint. We just started going back and forth with the beats and it was sounding different, it was making me make different sounding sh**, which was fun to me. This is like the off-season, when I'm just finishing up my album, so the joints just came out of nowhere. It's dope, we just ended up doing it. I didn't have it planned or nothing, it just came about and it came out ill. We already shot videos for it and everything, so it's gonna be dope.
BallerStatus.com: Is that how a lot of your collaborations come about now, just through mutual people?
Alchemist: I mean, really, at this point now -- and I'm thinking about how it's like almost ten years of being relevant as a producer in the game -- it's like that's where all the collaborations are now. It's just like who has a lot of respect and who do I have a contact to and don't have to reach out to managers and fill in the paperwork? So it's kind of just like a collaborated effort of people who are down with each other and respect each other. Over the years, it was more like budgets and albums. We're bringing everyone together, managers and what I mean about stuff going on in the industry, but now I feel like you can get past that if you're lucky and just meet somebody whose dope and it's kind of like "I don't need that anymore." Like I never did a record for Jay-Z and that's still something that I always wanted to do, but at the same time I'm cool with working with new artists, like Fat Shawn on the West Coast, or Blue who's a new artist also, Kid Cudi. Artists I've been working with, artists on the up and up, who might be on their level in the future. At the end of the day, it's about just collaboration, ya know, respect each other. That's all I'm trying to do now.
Nothing would stop me from picking up my phone and calling somebody like Rakim, who I've seen on a couple of events and we've shook hands, and been like "Yo, I like your sh**." So, I'll just call him and be like "Yo, I got some beats for you." It's not a question of if he has a budget, or if he's working on his album and then hopefully he might. I mean that's how I hooked up with G Rap on my album, Chemical Warfare. I got two records with G rap, it just happened like that. We worked on a song on someone's album and that was the first time we ever worked and it was like we scratched the surface on collaboration. Like we didn't even collaborate and we made something else classic because we just went in the first day we met. So I reached back out and saw the respect was there. I even got a joint with me rapping on it and that's a triumph for me, because I rap more as fan and it's something I love to do. Ya know, G Rap is probably one of the greatest of all time, in my opinion, so to be able to rap on a record with him is a great moment for me. I been saving that joint, but I'm bout to kick it to another album.
BallerStatus.com: Which album are you trying to put that one on?
Alchemist: I mean it's been for Chemical Warfare, but I been itching to put it out. That's how this new EP came about, this digital EP out, the album Cookbook. It's basically just a spillover from Chemical Warfare, Rrcords that leaked out and a couple of records that I've been itching to put out and I was almost gonna put out that record with G Rap, but I was like I'm gonna wait and lead em up to the album because I don't want to dismantle my whole album and throwing out joints all over the place.
BallerStatus.com: So I've seen your website, AlchemistBeats.com. How did that whole concept come about?
Alchemist: We revamped it recently. I mean, it was so old prior to that, probably like a couple of months ago, it said coming soon 1st Infantry. I was in my other zone, ya know, grinding in the studio, messing with Myspace and other realms. But we finally got our personal website on a level where it's competing with other stuff now. Ya know, basically it's like the internet world moves so fast and it's like it used to be about flash and all that other stuff and now it's like no flash, media based, people want to read stuff and look at the footage and they just want to go right to the content. It's more content based in my opinion, so we revamped the site and really I just wanted to strip it down and make the sh** look like a brick wall and stick a TV in the wall and then let me write. I'm gonna write my own stuff, write my words, so people will know it's me. I got my own kooky way of writing, so people know that's me. I just wanted it to be something so that people knew it was a direct force, so if I wanted to put out a beat tomorrow or chop a sample tonight and just show everybody look what I did, check this, I can have a direct mainline to the people. So that's the concept of that. And we got down and got a tape player and I was just on tour with Red and Meth, so I think I'm gonna just take the camera and just film, film, film mad sh**. Personally I like to edit stuff and get it just right, but this was cool to be able to just film sh** and go straight to the net with your clips. Like you don't have time to edit out the parts you don't like, this is raw footage.
BallerStatus.com: What was it like being on the Still High Tour?
Alchemist: Man that was the sh**. That was incredible, an incredibly uplifting and smoky experience. They can't f*** with us on the weed man, straight up. Red and Meth, I love you guys, but you don't smoke like Alchemist and Evidence, put that out there. I can recall a night when I had the little nice purple piece of foliage, but I mean, there was never a shortage. We come from California, so we're gonna have a knack for the finest that there is to offer. We're spoiled, ya know? we come from the land of Kush. It was a smoky, great smoky time, I just enjoyed it. We had short set, me and Evidence, and it was kind of like people didn't know what to expect because you usually see him with Dilated and you can catch me DJ'ing for Em or with Mobb, so this was kind of uncharted what we were gonna do. That's why we really pushed it like, Red plus Meth, Al plus Ev, like we were just like we're those two dudes like Red and Meth are, so we kind of just went with that mentality. I'm the younger version and I can't say we won on stage, but when it comes to weed, we win. Nah, their stage show is flawless. It was good seeing them rock too. I was getting a lot of pointers. Touring over the years with Cypress, being around some of the best, on stage anyways, it's like you never stop learning. Taking a couple of things from every show, that's part of the game, ya know? It's great to be amongst veterans on tour.
BallerStatus.com: So you did the DJ thing for Eminem right?
Alchemist: Yea.
BallerStatus.com: How did all that come about?
Alchemist: I been managed, I don't really put it on my chest, but I been managed and represented by Live Artist for years. I mean it's been over four years. Paul Rosenberg, Em's manager also managed me, and was my lawyer prior to that, so I've had and affiliation with that camp kind of from day one, just on the low. So just being part of the team, as far as the management and having a good relationship with him over the years, my opportunity came up and it offered to us and we decided it would be a good look. It was a great opportunity for me to get on the road, after being on the road with Mobb, Cypress, seeing those stages and crowds and then going out there with him and being on the stage with him and 50, just took it to another level. When you're going on tour and you see crowds like that, it changes the way you want to make your music too ... your beats, everything. When you see what hooks rock the crowd, which beats when they drop really affect the crowd, it helps. So that sh** was dope. And like I said, I always try to put Shady on my back and Alchemist on the front of my chest. So I'm down with that camp, but I don't flag it around. It's got to be tasteful because I love being down with the camp and I feel like it's pretty much the best camp to be affiliated with. It's humbling to work all these years and build up Alchemist and my reputation and what I've built up, and go on tour with Em and it's like being Eminem's DJ is bigger than being Alchemist. That name is bigger and it's gonna put anybody in their spot and it was humbling for me to realize that all that work that I put in, I got a lot more to go. Because they could be like "Yo watch out Alchemist is coming through," or they could be like "Eminem's DJ is here" and it'll open a lot more doors. It's pretty incredible. It was awesome to realize the power and see I got a lot more to go.
BallerStatus.com: You been producing for about ten years now right?
Alchemist: Yea around ten.
BallerStatus.com: You're a big name now, so how is that different than from when you first started out?
Alchemist: I think just expectations. People are expecting a little more when you come through and they're thinking of every record that you've made in your life. They're like "Keep It Thorough" was crazy, "We Gonna Make It," what you got for us. It's like after you build up a career and can put out enough records to prove your not a fluke, then it's like you raise the level and the stakes, as far as continuing to put out records and it's almost that much harder every time. I love it, I live for the pressure. Somehow, I always manage -- whether the record is bigger or better -- every year I manage to drop something that's nice one way or another. Like I wouldn't compare my records. The way I look at it, I always try to make something that is current and works for the job. Sometimes the fans want to hold on to you like you're they're son and they're like a parent whose kid has grown up and they're like "Damn." They want to keep you little. So as far as that, I mean sometimes I understand when people like certain things. As stages get raised and one thing is I feel in my mind and heart that I kind of grew and made it past that stage when I first started and nobody knew who I was and I had to really be on my grind, as far as rolling into studios and reaching out to artists and really soliciting my talent. I feel like I got to stage and there are other producers who are at that stage now, probably making more money than I was making at that stage. I see that and I'm like "That's dope." I see some of em make it over that stage and get to the level where I feel I'm at, where I feel Knox is at, Just Blaze is at, where certain dudes just make it over a hump and you're like "They're good."
BallerStatus.com: When you've been in the game so long, is hard not to make stuff that sounds too similar?
Alchemist: I mean when you use samples, I guess, I'm luckier. I guess if I was using the same keyboard all the time, I would be struggling to find new sounds and stuff. But I guess by using samples and chopping the sounds, it's like every record was recorded at a different studio at a different time, and things were micced up and mixed and mastered different. They all have they're unique sound, especially when they hit that vinyl. It's hard to describe that difference, but there's a texture to samples that's hard to recreate. It's like sometimes you chop a sample, it's like one little bam and in that little bam, there are about fifteen instruments. It just caught the record at that one point and it's hard to recreate that. I guess by using sample,s sometimes I get away with it.
Anytime I would hear Neptunes and a Pharrell beat, I would always understand them. I don't know any other way to describe it, but I would always get it. Whenever I would hear his keyboard beats, I would be like "Ah I get that program, I get why he put the keys like that." And I never understood why and I spoke to his manager a long time ago and he was like "When we first started managing Pharrell, all his beats sounded like yours." He had the samples they were looped up and we kind of had to lean on him and convince him that he could create that kind of stuff without the sample, but he always thinks from the standpoint of samples. It's real simple and sample style, I don't now how to explain it. To be able to speak to his manager, it made me feel good, like it made me feel confident to make a beat like that. Like I could step to the keyboard, I just close my eyes and let my hands go. I don't know how to play, but I let them do what they're gonna do and then I just sit back and listen to it, like I'm listening to a soundtrack or a record. I kind of just keep my mindset on samples and keep it raw and simple.
BallerStatus.com: You're from California, but most people tend to associate you with East Coast music, why do you think that is?
Alchemist: I think it's just from my work with Mobb Deep. I moved out there, it's been like eleven years I been living in New York. I'm bi-coastal. I got my family in L.A., but I been there for I couldn't even tell you how long -- ten plus. I did the majority of my dirty work in New York. I kicked up the most dust there. Like I got my start with Dilated and that crew, Cypress Hill, but it was like I didn't really get my name and my weight up until I moved to New York and connected with Mobb. That led to working with Nas, Fat Joe, Capone and Norega, Pun, Pharaoh Monch, Lox. It was like the ball just started rolling when I got to the East and the music was so powerful. The sh** had people thinking I was from New York. I mean Premier is from Texas, but you can't tell me he doesn't represent that sound of New York. I mean the sound of New York was Premier, is Premier. I guess after a certain amount of time, holding it down, you become certified. I'm definitely New York Certified, but I rep the west coast, L.A. That's where I grew up, you can't change that.
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