The Alchemist's Outtakes
Get up on the rest of our interview with The Alchemist that didn't make it into the November issue.

Everyone knows Scott Caan and you were tight as a part of the Whooliganz? Did you have other famous friends growing up in LA?

Alchemist: Scotty, who's James Caan's son. You know Angie Voight who became Angie Jolie, we all went to school with her, Mila Jovovich, who used to go out with Seth from Crazytown, we were all a part of a crew together. Balthazar Getty, we all went to school with him. There's so many names, if I go back. I grew up with Jermaine Jackson's kids?both his daughter and his son are good friends of mine. Kareem Abdul-Jabaar's son used to go to our school. Not only that, Ted Field's daughter was a good friend of ours. We used to hang out Ted Field's house when we were young. That was like the hang out spot. We used to write graffiti on the walls in her room, and fuck the place up. I'm looking back on it like, ?yo that crib was incredible.' But when we were young, we used to run through there, do nitrous, fuckin' smoke weed, eat mushrooms and just trip out at this crib. I never really realized where I was, because when you're young and you're around all this money, everybody's parents had all these big cribs, you just don't think about it. When I go back to Beverly Hills or LA sometimes, I'll take Prodigy or Twin, drive them through there, and they're just in awe at the cribs. Then I start realizing like, "Yeah, fuck man" this shit is crazy after being gone for 10 years.

What were some of your earliest memories coming up as a producer before you hooked up with Mobb Deep?

Alchemist: When I moved to New York, I remember going to the studio for Roc-A-Fella, with Jay-Z and Biggs, and I remember S&S was there and this was when they just signed Beanie Sigel and I had a DAT tape with like 15 beats. And they was loving every beat on the DAT. They was like, "Who? You made this shit? This you?" I wasn't even saying shit. I just went in, played them my beats and it was the same theory when I was young saying raps. Like, I'm just playing my music. They looked at me one way when I came in, and then after playing the beat CD they were kind of looking at me a different way?understanding, ?OK, you made all those beats?aight, damn, ok?' It was like a different respect. I started peeping that like ?OK, if this is how I gotta get my respect this is how I gotta get it' because I started as a rapper.

What were the other secrets to your success?

Alchemist: There was a period when I was just heavy on that. "Fuck it, who's doin' an album? Who's working? Who's there?" Show up. Call the dudes, come through with the DAT tapes. I would see other producers like, El-P, DJ Scratch, there's a couple of other producers, Rockwilder, Nottz, Diamond, there's a lot of cats that were grindin'. Anytime someone would have a studio session and be working on their album, 9 times out of 10 one of them would be there too, come through and play beats. We'd see each other and form a circle of producers that were all in the loop at the time. I'd see El-P and he'd come to P's session. We'd be playing beats. He'd be like, "Yo come by tomorrow, CNN are working tomorrow." I'd come by, that's how I gave him "Bang Bang." We would all kind of look out for each other. That was just he motivation to get my name everywhere?doing beats for everybody and develop my own sound and name.

Especially Mobb Deep.

Alchemist: It took a long time until I got down with them to where it was like, "Yo Al!" [laughs] It was a very long time. Those guys have a lot of deaths through their circle and they're leery just being from Queens in general. The white and black thing too wasn't like automatic, me being a white dude, just the whole shit. P is one of the most skeptical people on the planet. For years he thought I was an FBI agent.

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