The Alchemist: The Science Of Making Beats
The Alchemist first got his start as a fourteen-year-old emcee in the Whooliganz, a Cypress Hill offshoot that made little noise. As he got older, Al decided to concentrate more on the aspect of making beats, rather than rocking the mic. For a while, Alchemist studied under DJ Muggs and the Soul Assassins camp, making beats for Cypress Hill and various Soul Assassins projects, yet sometimes was never given credit. Within the last year, Alchemist stepped out from the shadow of his teacher, producing somewhere around fifty songs, for everyone from Swollen Members to Mobb Deep. The now twenty-two-year-old producer works closely with DJ Premier, and with his current track record, could potentially be seen as one of hip-hop’s greatest beat smiths ever. We met up with Al at D&D Studios, and asked him to break some shit down for us:
The Alchemist On Beginning:
"I used to hang out at B-Real’s crib in Venice and they built a little studio in the back, that’s when I first started working with Muggs. As a matter of fact, it was a song that was done back then, with Busta Rhymes and Cypress, this was right when Leaders was breaking up, and Busta was just about to go solo. It never came out, but it was called "Think About It", and they sampled (Special Ed’s) ‘Think About It’."
On Muggs and Ghost Producing:
"He didn’t really train me because I had already been doing my ground work making beats. By the time I started working with him, I already had a year or two experience working on the ASR-10. Muggs does his own thing, and he’s an extremely talented person. You’re going to hear stories about what goes on and what went on, and there are definitely situations when I was coming up where I had to go through steps. Everyone goes through them, and at that point, sometimes you feel like you are being sonned, or held down, but that’s just how the game is. They were just the steps I had to take, and luckily it didn’t break me, it just made me stronger. They just show me more love when they see me doin’ my thing. I’m always going to be representin’ Soul Assassins, cause that’s who put me in the game."
On DJ Premier:
"When I first moved out here, I hooked up with Premier, so I got tight with him, and he put me on with a lot of artists."
On Mobb Deep’s "The Realest"
"I got a call from Prodigy that night, and he was like ‘Yo, remember that beat you were playing? Come through.' Him and Havoc both liked that beat, and both wanted to use it for their solo projects, but they ended up using it for their album. G. Rap heard it, wrote his rhymes right on the spot and we did it. I tell G. Rap every time I see him, ‘Man, that shit was an interlude, nobody cared about that beat’, then he decided to write to it, and now the beat is incredible."
On Royce The 5’9’s "I’m The King"
"That was the first beat he ever picked from me. I didn’t think much of it, but the artist made the beat. When he was writing rhymes to it, I didn’t know where he was going with it, but he freaked it."
On Pharoahe Monch & M.O.P.’s "No Mercy"
"That was a beat I originally gave to Prodigy, but one day I was playing beats for Pharoahe Monch one day. He heard a bunch of beats and he liked a lot of them, but then I played him that one, and he was like ‘I don’t like any of those other beats but this one’. Then there was a scenario that it was Prodigy’s beat and everything, but then I told Prodigy that Monch wanted to use it, and he was cool with it."
On Casual’s "I Gotta Get Down"
"That was a Dilated Peoples song years ago that never came out. Dante Ross picked that beat out, and Casual was in love with that beat. I tried to give that beat to M.O.P. a while back, but that was before I made the connection."
On Dilated Peoples:
"Evidence and I went to the same high school. After I went on tour with Cypress, I had to find a new high school because I missed too many days. Evidence went to this little private school in Malibu with like 40 kids, and he hooked me up. That was the best thing that ever happened to me. That’s how I got in college and everything. I had a lot of input on "The Platform" album, but because I live out here now, I’m not in the studio with them everyday. But I am closely involved with Dilated Peoples. We’ve been working together for so many different years. Evidence even rhymed on the Whooliganz record back in the day."
On Swollen Members / Battle Axe:
"Evidence hooked me up with Swollen. I was out in Canada, I made the beat for "Front Street" out there. I just did a whole album for Buc Fifty out there for Battle Axe Recordings. I know me and Buck can make ill shit. Madchild is a big fan, and he showed interest. There wasn’t a lot of money, but we just said fuck it, and did a whole album. We didn’t hold back or nothing."
On Buc Fifty:
"Buck is one of the few people in this industry who I can get down with. We could be in the studio, and I’ll tell him ‘Yo, that rap sucks’. We fight and we go through it when we work on music, and that’s how you create the best shit. I know him from L.A., when he was Buckwhead in The Wascalz. Before I met him he was from NY, and he moved back here, and he was always cool. I feel like I know how to produce him, I am one of his biggest fans. I know his rhymes better than he does."
On Agallah’s "Crookie Monster":
"That was all Jon Shecter’s fault. Like ten years ago, Agallah had this idea to rap like that, and one day we hooked up with Sheck, and found the Sesame Street sound, and we chopped it up, and we just brought it back from the dead."
On Versatility:
"If you hear the beat tape right now, you’ll hear a lot beats for these types of emcees (Mobb Deep, CNN, Nas, etc). Music is like that, it rubs off of whoever you are around. If I go back to L.A. and start hanging out with Evidence for two weeks, it just takes a minute. You have to go in and out of different zones. I didn’t make "Guaranteed" and the shit for G. Rap in the same day."
On Forthcoming Beats:
"I got three joints on Prodigy’s album, one of them, "I Keep It Thorough" is my shit, I could play it all day long. They won’t even give me a copy. I’m doing a lot of work for Mobb Deep. I'm their tour DJ, right now. Everyone from Queen’s wants my shit now. I did three songs for CNN, one with Foxy Brown, where she is dissin’ Lil Kim HARD! I did three songs for Nas’s "Queensbridge" project. Also, I did some joints for Everlast’s new album, I produced the entire Buc Fifty album, and there’s the new D&D Project I am working on now. "
