The Alchemist Tells All: The Stories Behind His Classic Records (Part 1)

[IronFist]

You may not realize it, but after dropping several excellent projects in 2012, The Alchemist is quietly having one of the best (and most productive) years of his illustrious career. Earlier in the year, Gangrene (his duo with Oh No) dropped Vodka & Ayahuasca , he followed that up with his own album, Russian Roulette, and he teamed up with Domo Genesis of Odd Future to release No Idols.

What's more impressive than what's he's already done this year is all the projects he's got lined up for the future. He's been working on an entire album with Action Bronson titled Rare Chandeliers, he's got another project with Evidence titled Step Brothers, as well as projects with artists like Prodigy, Freddie Gibbs, and Boldy James.

But before we can talk too much about his future, we'd like to look back on his past. It's been a long road for the 34-year-old producer, who grew up in Beverly Hills, California. Even though he hails from the West Coast and he got into the game under prominent Cali acts like Cypress Hill, ALC rose to fame producing for New York rappers like Mobb Deep. His street-oriented sound hasn't produced too many Billboard hits, but more classics than your average beatsmith.

In part one of our two-part conversation, Alchemist reflected on how he came up in the game and some of his earliest hits. He talked about how he used to carry Everlast's bags on tour, how Snoop Dogg came through to the studio with coffee bean sized bags of weed, and the advice the late, great Chris Lighty gave him about radio.

Defari "Focused Daily" (1999) — The Alchemist Tells All: The Stories Behind His Classic Records (Part 1) | Complex

 

[Colilluminati]

But it was a weird session, it didn’t really click off right. I was at Quad Studios and nobody was there, Beans and I had never met and he rolled through with his crew and he was like, ‘Yo you the engineer man? Roll some weed up.’ I remember calling Hip-Hop and being like, ‘Damn, I wish you were here to referee this.’


Maybe two or three times, I went to Rocafella or Def Jam and went to go meet Beans, Biggs, or Hop and they called Jay-Z into the room. I definitely got to play beats before for Jay in those scenarios but it just never connected.

 

[Colilluminati]

On top of all that, it was dope because it got heavy radio airplay all day with no chorus. It was a song on the radio, but not a huge radio hit. I remember after the record came out Chris Lighty was like, ‘Yo, the song could be bigger if it had a hook, we need a hook for radio’ and I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ and that’s when I learned about radio.

“When radio does call research on a song they loop up 10 seconds of a song for the listeners and do surveys. What part do they loop? The hook. So if a song doesn’t have a hook, they don’t even know what to loop so they were like we need a hook.

“Later, they got Havoc in the studio to put a hook on it and there's even a version out that ended up going out to radio with Hav’s hook but it just didn’t do anything. The hook was dope too but the song was already powerful enough.

link?

 

[RealestSinceKumbaya]

Subs.
Alc is the illest producer, ever.
IMO.

 

[ManBearPig]

good shyt

 

[IronFist]

Defari "Focused Daily" (1999)
Album: Focused Daily
Label: Warner Bros., Tommy Boy

The Alchemist: “We’re digging in the crates now. I remember a time where me and him would go to Cut Master Kurt’s studio and this dikk ‘esse’ tried to sneak up on us and we held our ground. So shouts to Defari for holding me down when an ‘esse’ tried to thug me out for my parking spot.

“Straight up, that’s an unknown fact. We bossed up. I’d like to make it more exciting like I mashed the guy out but that didn’t happen. But if you want to say that I did to make the story iller, that’s cool. I’ll check with Defari so he can confirm. I don’t wanna look crazy out there.

“Sorry I didn’t mean to get off track. That was a beat that I actually did first as a remix to a Mobb Deep song. I forget why we did it but I did some remix with that beat. It wasn’t an official remix and I ended up getting with Defari and knocking that joint out.”

Terror Squad "Bring It On" (1999)
Album: The Album
Label: WMG, Big Beat, Terror Squad

The Alchemist: “I remember that beat well. That’s the Jewish piano right there. That’s the actual name on the disk, it’s pretty funny I got the picture somewhere. There's a version of that beat with Beanie Sigel on it.

“A lot of people don’t know my relationship with Kyambo ‘Hip-Hop’ Joshua and [Former Roc-A-Fella Records exec] Kareem “Biggs” Burke goes back a long time. They will always be my close friends in the business.


Beans and I had never met and he rolled through with his crew and he was like, ‘Yo you the engineer man? Roll some weed up.’ I remember calling Hip-Hop and being like, ‘Damn, I wish you were here to referee this.’


“I met Hip-hop hanging out with DJ Premier at D&D Studios, when he was working with Jay-Z. I used to hang out at D&D with Premier and whenever people came through he would always say, ‘Yo, this is my man Al.’ He did a lot for me without even realizing it.

“They were picking Preme up and they were going to another studio so I rolled with them and then me and Hop started talking. He's the same age as me and we’ve been real close friends ever since. And you know Biggs is his brother.

“When they signed Beans, they were on a mission to hook me up with him cause I was coming up and they just felt like it would be a good match. I had this one DAT tape at the time I had mad beats on it and I would see Biggs and he would be like, ‘Yo number 17’ or some number on the tape and he would be like, ‘Number 17, I'm telling Beans about that one.’ We always tried to put it together.

“But it was a weird session, it didn’t really click off right. I was at Quad Studios and nobody was there, Beans and I had never met and he rolled through with his crew and he was like, ‘Yo you the engineer man? Roll some weed up.’ I remember calling Hip-Hop and being like, ‘Damn, I wish you were here to referee this.’


Maybe two or three times, I went to Rocafella or Def Jam and went to go meet Beans, Biggs, or Hop and they called Jay-Z into the room. I definitely got to play beats before for Jay in those scenarios but it just never connected.


“Maybe two or three times, I went to Rocafella or Def Jam and went to go meet Beans, Biggs, or Hop and they called Jay-Z into the room. I definitely got to play beats before for Jay in those scenarios but it just never connected.

“Beans is my man and I love him and have nothing but respect for him, but the first time in the studio with him was strange. We ended up doing some stuff that night and we ended up recording to the ‘Bring It On’ beat. I remember him saying, ‘You only balled on the playground’ and it was dope but it got lost in the shuffle.

“Then it made it to the Terror Squad project. Joe did justice to it. It’s funny because my friend Stretch Armstrong ended up throwing that on for The LOX to freestlye to. Stretch ended up calling me saying, ‘Yo The LOX want to hookup with you’ and that kinda started my relationship with The LOX.”

 

[IronFist]

Big Pun f/ Tony Sunshine "Mamma" (2001)
Album: Endangered Species
Label: Loud

The Alchemist:“With the exception of Snoop, my best and most memorable experiences in the studio were with Big Pun. I have so many Pun stories. I was really lucky. We didn’t end up getting to release a lot, but the moments I had in the studio with him getting to work were...I can’t even...there are no words to describe Pun.


Everybody who knew Pun knows that anything he would wear would be so exaggerated and tailor made to fit him. If he had the forest green Uptowns, then he had the forest green leather pants, and a forest green hat. He embodied what you see in a graffiti caricature, he was like a human cartoon.


“I would literally be in awe every time he would come to the studio. Everybody who knew him knows that anything he would wear would be so exaggerated and tailor made to fit him. If he had the forest green Uptowns, then he had the forest green leather pants, and a forest green hat. He embodied what you see in a graffiti caricature, he was like a human cartoon. He was incredible. I'd be staring at him and he’d be like, ‘Yo what the fukk are you looking at.’

“Then, his humor, he never turned off. He was literally one of the funniest people you could ever be around. He loved Cuban Link, he would always do funny things for Cuban. There were so many times in the studio where he was just a jokester and it came across in the music.

“He’d have two cereal boxes with ducktape around them that said, ‘Pun’s Cereal’ and he would literally reach over and tip the whole two boxes and down half of it just sitting there. Anything that was edible, that he could reach, he was busting down. Like if there was a bowl of fruit that was there just for aesthetics that nobody would eat, he would reach over and just bust half an apple down in one bite.


He’d have two cereal boxes with ducktape around them that said, ‘Pun’s Cereal’ and he would literally reach over and tip the whole two boxes and down half of it just sitting there.


“I didn’t have my weight up enough to really be creating the greatest amount of music with him but I remember his character. It’s really wack that he wasn’t able to make more of the music that he made because he was on his way to some other shyt with the singing. Sometimes I go and watch old footage and interviews of him and he's just, he was great man.

“I could never to make a comparison on that level because Pun was something no one could ever be, but some of his humor and some of his great qualities I see in Action Bronson. I could never compare the two, but the humor and the personality comes through so well. Like there's people who are just fun to be around and have that type of energy.”

Nas "My Way" (2002)
Album: The Lost Tapes
Label: Columbia, Ill Will

The Alchemist: “This is gonna be a really nerdy interview we gotta do something funny man, something’s gotta explode or something. I should fake some type of an attack, fake like I had some type of attack. ‘Ahhhhh!’ Okay I'm back now that was crazy.

“I wasn’t there when he did the vocals, because Nas would take beats of his own out. At that time, one of his A&Rs would give him beats or hit me way later and say like, ‘I want you to see what Nas did to this beat.’


I also brought some records in a bag because I was thinking of the title, Stillmatic. I always liked those freestyles that Nasdid, like ‘Splittin Phillies,’ all of those joints that sounded like he was rhyming in a park.


“Nas was doing Stillmatic, he had the title already. He was in the studio in Long Island and I went out there to see him. I had all these beats on a DAT tape but I also brought some records in a bag because I was thinking of the title, Stillmatic. I always liked those freestyles that he did, like ‘Splittin Phillies,’ all of those joints that sounded like he was rhyming in a park.

“So I went to the studio and I was playing him beats. I said, ‘Yo, it’s cool but the name Stillmatic, I just heard something like if we just looped this up and I threw on a Cecil Homes version of the Barry White shyt. On some park shyt.’ And he was rubbing his chin like, ‘Alright, go loop it up.’

“Nas left, I looped it up, and we did whatever we had to do to get it swinging. I left and came back the next day and Nas wasn’t there but the engineer just pressed play and the song was done. It pretty much embodied what we were talking about. No half stepping, flat tops, he just killed it. It made me realize how beyond good he is.”

 

[IronFist]

always good reading about pun

 

[JulesWinfield]

dope. i love reading these.

 

[tirademode]

I'd like to hear Beanie over that Terror Squad beat . Didn't Prodigy initially think Alc was FBI ?

If so he plays that down in this .


I can't believe dude was cleaning Everlast's Ewings with a toothbrush though

Good read . Thanks for the link.