The Alchemist Tells All: The Stories Behind His Classic Records (Part 2)

In the first part of our conversation with The Alchemist, we talked about how he got his start in the rap game and how his career progressed after that. In the second part of our conversation, we begin by talking about his first solo album, 1st Infantry.

While 1st Infantry isn't a unanimous classic, it's still a very significant record. Taking ques from idols like DJ Premier and DJ Muggs, ALC sought to create a full-length project which he saw as the next step as a producer. The album became the blueprint for the second half of his career as he crafted a few more solo albums, but also produced entire, excellent projects for Prodigy and Curren$y. The album's impact is even clearer these days. "Been waiting to get a Alchemist beat since I bought 1st Infantry," claims Schoolboy Q, on the ALC-produced track "My Homie."

Al also told us about the hassles of putting together posse cuts, why Eminem apologized to him after doing a cut on his album, and the Jedi Mind Trick he sometimes has to pull on rappers...

As told to Insanul Ahmed (@Incilin)

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Album: 1st Infantry
Label: Koch, All City

The Alchemist: “It was one good day in the studio in the crib in New York. I have footage of it. A couple of times we looked back at it, we ordered food that day and you can see the food on the table.

“I definitely went back to it to try to analyze where we ordered from like, ‘Oh we gotta order from there more often.’ I was reviewing the tape to find a secret magic ingredient because we ordered from there mad other times and we never made ‘Hold You Down’ even again.

“I flipped that sample and I'm just trying to make it say something else. It originally says, ‘Hold you Stan’ and I made it sound like down. P was sitting there and he's writing while I’m making it.

“A lot of beats ended up unfinished because he starts writing while I'm making them and I feel bad because I keep stopping to keep fixing the beat and he's like, ‘I got this. Let’s go, you can fix it up later.’ And a lot of times we ended up leaving it unfinished. It’s like I gotta race motherfuckers. I see them writing and the hours of sand is turned over and I'm like fuck.

I don’t know how me rapping was received. They probably just said it was wack and didn’t tell me to stick on the beats. I kinda snuck in on like, ‘Hey! Now deal with this verse really quick. Don’t worry though, the hook will be back.’ I never wanted to be the producer guy who you don’t wanna get a beat from him because you’re afraid he's gonna wanna rap on your song.

“Getting Nina Sky on the song was probably a management call. They just felt like they it needed a hook and I kept telling them, ‘Yo ‘Keep It Thoro!’ We don’t need a hook!’

“I gave them that speech and I guess that speech is wack now. They were like, ‘No this song could be better with a hook.’ I decided not to fight everybody because they are pretty smart people and Cipha Sounds was working with them and he told me, ‘Trust me, send me something.’

“So I sent him the song, they sent it back to me, and I liked it but I was so stuck on my producer shit. I wanted to be right about it not needing a hook but everybody was like, ‘You’re out of your mind. It’s way better with the hook.’ So I grew to love it. After a week, it was like thank God I didn’t listen to myself which is a rare moment. Sometimes you're wrong and that was one of those moments.

“Illa Gee was not my artist and I had no intentions of premiering Illa Gee—who’s my man and a dope MC. He wasn’t my artist and it wasn’t my agenda. P brought him through, he dropped a verse, and it was tight. I actually cut his verse down. He had eight more bars but mad people were telling me to take him off of it. Label people, like, ‘It doesn’t make sense.’ I said, ‘Fuck it, he deserves it, he earned a spot on that record.’

“I don’t know how me rapping was received. They probably just said it was wack and didn’t tell me to stick on the beats. I think it went well. And Prodigy was first on the song so you are into the song already and I kinda snuck in on motherfuckers like, ‘Hey! Now deal with this verse really quick. Don’t worry though, the hook will be back.’

“I never thought too hard about the rapping thing but I also never wanted to be the producer guy who you don’t wanna get a beat from him because you’re afraid he's gonna wanna rap on your song.

“So over the years I only worked and recorded rhymes with people who were really in my circle. My friends who fuck with me and know my skills as a producer. But I do enjoy saying dumb shit on my beats.”

Album: 1st Infantry
Label: Koch, All City

The Alchemist: “That was actually just gonna be my Jadakiss joint, but Green Lantern ended up putting on his mixtape ahead of time and it was before I finished it. I remember being really upset at the time like, ‘Come on man?’

“So then Styles P and Sheek Louch just came through for me. To be honest they saved me because they came through and got on the joint and made it special. So when the album came out I kinda produced it up more so the one that was on the mixtape sounded like you don’t even wanna hear that.”

Album: 1st Infantry
Label: Koch, All City

The Alchemist: “1st Infantry was hot. I infiltrated so it’s real infiltrizing [sic]. I threw everybody for a loop, ‘What is going on here? Who is this Puerto Rican guy who’s trying to rap like Prodigy? Get him out of here B. Put on some real shit.’

“The reception to it was more than I could have ever expected. It sold almost 200,000 copies and that was like amazing. I never would have thought that. I always do something that I like and that’s as far as I go. I'm always amazed when I see a bunch of people singing along, I'm like, ‘Word? Dope!’ I know I like it, that’s as much as I can say.

If the Kanye thing was in my cards it would have happened already. I didn’t see myself the way he saw himself on the stage with that many people. You have to see it. I realized that I wanted to make what I wanted to make and then find my lane as I progressed.

“It was a big stepping stone for me because it’s like where do you go as a producer? I made beats for different artists and made a name for myself. People know who I am but what do I do now? Do I keep being this beats for sale guy? What’s the next step?

“If the Kanye thing was in my cards it would have happened already. I didn’t see myself the way he saw himself on the stage with that many people. You have to see it. I realized that I wanted to make the shit I wanted to make and then find my lane as I progressed.

“People hate when I rhyme. Like I read the reviews, ‘We don’t really care much for his rapping but we like the beats.’ So it’s kinda cool I get to piss people off as long as the beats are good.

“I love the fact that I can pull off a lot right now. I DJ parties, I help Gangrene, and I rhyme with too. I like the opportunities that I have now and I think 1st Infantry gave birth to that. I’ve been working with Schoolboy Q and Domo Genesis and both of them are like, ‘1st Infantry man!’ They were both really into it and it’s dope to see that it had some type of effect on people that I think are dope now.”

Album: Kiss of Death
Label: Interscope, Ruff Ryders

The Alchemist: “It was interesting because we had ‘Feel Me’ and he wanted you to still feel him. I guess he had feel issues. You felt him on feel me, but then he wanted you to still feel him. So shout out to Jadakiss for really demanding that you feel his shit. Pause. Infinite Pause.

“One thing I can remember about it was his engineer. He was recording his vocals. They do this thing where they use two or three lead vocals, they use more than one track when they record. He was going in to do the second track and his engineer was like, ‘Nah, not on this one.’

“Kiss said, ‘What do you mean?’ and he said, ‘Trust me. This is more of a personal joint. You’re talking to them. Don’t do it on that one.’ He didn’t do it on that one I think it was the first time I'd seen him not do it. It was a good call because he's talking to you.”

Album: 20/20
Label: Capitol

The Alchemist: “I was thinking about Juelz Santana when I was making that beat. Sometimes you’re making a beat and you have somebody in your mind. They never get on it but its just a motivator to finish it. I played it for Dilated Peoples and they were like, ‘Yo, lets go, back again!’ They did it, no-brainer shit. Everytime we get up it’s a no-brainer.

“I think the video helped bring it all together because my man Jason Goldwatch came up with the idea. I didn’t really get it at first he kinda drew it out, even down to the day of the shoot it was really almost not gonna work.

“I remember me and Evidence were like, ‘Fuck man.’ Jason was like, ‘No, trust me.’ It was thought out but it was such a feat that I remember when it was finally working I looked at Jason and he looked like the dude from Back To The Future, like an amazed scientist watching his own creation happen.

“The end result as you can see is straight genius. People try to bite it but that’s why Jason is ill, he rides on the edge. He rides the line between not happening and amazing. He's one of the best. He's an artist.”

Album: Killa Season
Label: Asylum Entertainment, Killa Entertainment

The Alchemist: “Girls wipe their ass with wet wipes? I don’t know what the fuck Cam'ron meant. Let’s call Cam’ron and ask him what he meant. I remember when they told me about the name of the song. They sent it back to me and I said, ‘What the hell am I about to listen to?’ But he killed it.

“I was on a mission at the time to do something for Cam. Me and people in his camp were boys. I just told them, ‘I'm getting something with him this time.’ I made it my mission. I kept sending him new beats and finally he said, ‘Aight we got one.’

Girls wipe their a** with wet wipes. I don’t know what the f**k he meant. Let’s call Cam’ron and ask him what he meant. I remember when they told me about the name of the song and I said, ‘What the hell am I about to listen to?’

“That was one of the times I got to do something for Cam. I'm a fan of his shit. I was there when they did ‘Losing Weight.’ Cam has always been so innovative and ill. People don’t know I did that beat because I really wasn’t fixed on putting my ‘Alchemist’ drop on everything.

“That was a turning point for me cause that was the first beat I made on an MPC. Since then I've been messing with the MPC. That ushered in the style I was doing at the time because I chopped a lot on ‘Wet Wipes. On some nerdy producer shit, I was trying to move the samples like how you would move high hats like chop shit and pitch it up.

“I had this whole style in my mind that I was trying to do and I did a whole batch of beats like that. ‘Wet Wipes’ was the first that came out. The next was Evidence’s ‘Let Yourself Go’ which is a similar style. Then I did it on Chemical Warfare’s ‘Keep The Heels On.’ Then I did it on Wayne’s album which was also like that.

“I was doing a style which I've [stopped doing since then]. I was like, ‘Alright enough.’ I do that for myself so I can look back and see my progression. Challenge yourself to do different things. The last beat I did like that was ‘Surgical Gloves.’”

Album: Return of the Mac
Label: E1 Music

The Alchemist: “All the producers I came up on made albums first and then they got know as a producer. Like Muggs with Cypress and Premier with Gangstar. They all made albums and then their production was found after by people. I felt like it would be a feat to do that.

“At that point P trusted me and it was like, he wasn’t gonna rap on anything he didn’t like, but he was like, ‘I like it. Keep it coming.’ We just crafted it. Maybe it’s because he wasn’t thinking as hard because it was after the G-Unit thing and he felt like, ‘I gotta prove everything to 50 and people who are fronting. We’re survivors man. Let’s do a mixtape.’

“Then he was more focused on killing it and not on beat selection and so I got to craft it. But he had input of course. The name sparked it and we just went from there. The album was a moment of creativity for us that we were able to pull off.

It’s crazy to be able to do that with a company like Koch which was so wack. Sorry. The people who worked there were great people but the overall execution was s**t. It's amazing we were able to pull that off. Their meeting room smelled like pickled feet.

“It’s crazy to be able to do that with a company like Koch which was so fucking wack. Sorry. The people who worked there were great people but the overall execution was shit. It's amazing we were able to pull that off. Their meeting room smelled like fucking pickled feet.

“We did a lot of good things but it was a weird transitional period where they were starting to get more success with more commercial shit that wasn’t that. It still did good for them but it wasn’t exactly the direction they were going as a company.

“So to me it’s a feat that shit even came out. With good artwork and all that, not forced commercial bullshit. They limited it too but I think that shit did what it was supposed to.

“It wasn’t supposed to be a commercial smash, it was supposed to be some raw shit. It was ill because the outlets and the attention we got from that it was like wow. It showed P and myself that you just gotta do what you believe in and not worry about anything.

“I can’t take any credit for the video that was all P. He went on his own and did that shit he didn’t even tell me. It was so ill that’s what sparked everything. That was all P, I just saw it one day like, ‘Wow this is great. This is for us?’ He didn’t even tell me nothing it was just like he had to do something, but I'm glad he did.

“Good rap times. Let’s go home crack open a bottle and enjoy a little rap. Go home, pour out some wine, and throw on a little rap music to finish your day. It’s good stuff. Rap hor’s d'oeuvres.”

Album: Desire
Label: Universal Motown, SRC

The Alchemist: “It was a dope song and that was done long before it came out. I think it was even done when he was on Rawkus. So that’s a while. It’s like a nice fine wine that fermented into a great flavor which became ‘My Desire.’

““Bottled up, fermented, and when we cracked the bottle it was just awesome. Its soulful, it has it’s moments of soul. The sun comes out too, once a day, you can’t ignore that. I like sun. It’s good stuff, I like studios better but suns good for a little bit.”

Album: H.N.I.C. Pt. 2
Label: Voxonic

The Alchemist: “That was a good one. That was P on his craziness. He’s got a lot of theories, that’s why we call him ‘Science.’ So he was sharing his illuministic theorum. That he has designed, it’s a booklet and you can buy it from him if you want. It’s pretty deep stuff.

“It’s like the other pill, whatever the pill is that makes you bug out. Listen to that song and take that other pill and fall down the rabbit hole and while you’re falling, I'm gonna be making rap music. So I don’t have time to fall. That’s good for the three minutes that it plays.

“That was a dope song but as a producer you don’t always agree or disagree, I didn’t have an opinion one way or another I just wanted to make the beat funky fresh. As long as the beat is slamming, slam banging funkey def hyper fresh, that’s it.”

Album: Tha Carter III
Label: Universal Motown, Cash Money

The Alchemist: “I sent it to him to get on it and then he said, ‘I’d like to use it on my album’ and I made the wise decision to agree. He hoped on ‘Who Can I Trust’ with Cormega which I produced with my man Jonathan Lightly for the Violator compilation.

“They came to New York and they were the Hot Boys still and I can’t sit here and say like, ‘Yo I knew he was the one!’ but he always has been super dope and anytime we’d ever see him anywhere with Mobb Deep the love was always reciprocated. ‘We fuck with you. We fuck with you too.’ It was always, ‘Yo I gotta get you some beats’ in passing.

“He’s just like amazing, it’s hard to even pinpoint when it happened. He was so ill that people were trying to say he had ghostwriters. That’s how you know your ill, like, ‘Somebody else had to have written that.’ Like, nope, he wrote it. He's capable and he's taken his shit to new heights.

Numerous times I had a beat I wanted somebody to get on, they weren’t tripping on it, and I was like, ‘Yo can you get on this for my project?’ Then they record it and the next day the call you like, ‘Nah we gotta keep this, this is hot.’ So sometimes I gotta do a Jedi-Mind trick.

“It's definitely an honor to have contributed to a project with him. I'm never afraid to send him any type of beat. Like some artists you would say, ‘Oh I gotta send them certain types cause I know that’s what they are looking for.’ I feel like he's such an artist that I could send him anything. Wayne is ill.

“A lot of beats that I use people don’t see the light [the first time I play it]. I'm not saying they think it’s weak, they just don’t see it. Numerous times I had a beat I wanted somebody to get on, they weren’t tripping on it, and I was like, ‘Yo can you get on this for my project?’ Then they record it and the next day the call you like, ‘Nah we gotta keep this shit, this shit is hot.’

“So sometimes I gotta do a Jedi-Mind trick. That’s what happened with this song. That was supposed to be for my album, even Juelz and Fab got on that for my album because they weren’t fucking with it like that. I sent that to Fab and said, ‘Can you get on this for my album?’ He recorded it and then said, ‘Nah I want to keep it.’

“I can remember times with 50 when me and P played him songs. P would play him a Mobb Deep song and be like, ‘I need that beat.’ Once he hears someone rhyming on it they see it. You get used to that. What I do is just play beats over and over for people until they go, ‘You played me that already,’ and I go, ‘Alright, he's not one of those guys.’”

Album: Chemical Warfare
Label: E1, ALC

The Alchemist: “That came together in bits and pieces. I got the beat, got this person, and this person, and this person. I don’t think I'd do that anymore. I don’t think I would do that whole elaborate process to make those type of records. They happen when they happen now.

“That one, I'm not saying it couldn’t have been done in one session, but it was all this having to get one guy on it and then call this guy and get this guy on it. It’s not chasing but everybody works on their own. It took a lot of work to get that done. The finished project was dope and the video is like my favorite thing that I ever did.

“But I feel like the amount of effort and time, especially now in an era where music comes and goes a lot quicker, I don’t know if I would wait that long on one beat to get one thing done. I'm more now about staying in the fluctuation, making due with what’s around you. It's a renegade style of music. It's like graffiti, it's collages. You gotta take what’s there and make it happen.”

Album: Chemical Warfare
Label: E1, ALC

The Alchemist:“It's funny we laugh about it now cause that’s the era where he [Eminem] was just sobering up and he was still coming out of those accents. I was so happy and it was so dope at the time but he was kinda like over the accent thing.

A couple times Eminem has been like, ‘Yo my bad I had to give you one of the accent joints for your album.’

“A couple times he’s been like, ‘Yo my bad I had to give you one of the accent joints for your album.’ Like are you kidding, if I can get an adlib from Eminem I'm lucky. He's the greatest, possibly, of all time. Regardless of me DJing for him. Em is the man.

“I worked for him too he's a great boss. Great guy. Good rapper, pretty good. I'm expecting big things from him, if he keeps it up, at least some jewelry for this Marshall guy. The kid’s got something, a little spark.”

Album: Slaughterhouse
Label: E1

The Alchemist: “That was Royce’s call. Royce told me they were working on a project needed some joints, I sent it to him, he said, ‘This is it.’ They smashed it up and let me hear it, I said great, and we pretty much just went from there.

“I didn’t know exactly how and where everything was gonna go some when Royce told me they were pulling beats together and gonna do a project it was a no-brainer.

“I sampled Evidence’s voice for the ‘Microphone’ part. I was doing the drums, basically I was just paying homage to that whole Rakim thing but I ended up keeping it in the beat because it sounded dope. So shoutout to Evidence for not suing me, nice guy. I gave him some weed or something and he got off my back.”

Album: Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II
Label: EMI, Ice H2O

The Alchemist: “Raekwon is the man. I didn’t think anyone would see the science behind that beat. It’s like when producers come through, certain producers, they see the science behind the beats because that’s what we do.

“Or there are some beats that all producers know or some beats that you only play for other producers because I don’t know if a rapper is gonna get it but I know you’re gonna get this. This is what we do. That was one of those.

“I never really pushed it on anybody cause it was part of that style. I remember playing it for K-Slay. I remember he liked it a lot and he wanted to use it for something and I was like, ‘Word?’ I remember anytime I played that for someone on a whim and they liked it it was like, ‘Okay dope.’ I didn’t know if it was like too styled out or too choppy or whatever.

“Then Rae heard it, I played it for him one day and he was like, ‘That’s it.’ Really? He was like, ‘Yo I get it.’ And I was like, aww man beautiful. And he did the right thing to it.”

Album: Boss Of All Bosses 2.5
Label: N/A

The Alchemist:“I actually hooked up with Cudi first. I forget who told me about Cudi, I think it was like 88 Keys. We were on tour and he showed me some footage of him at his crib singing and I said, ‘Yo he's dope.’

Cudi is just like Snoop where the minute the beat came on, he had the melody immediately. So he put the words on a little bit after and any beat we played, if he didn’t get it after like a minute, I'd play something else.

“Then me and Cudi hooked up. Plain Pat is my man, so he came by my crib. ‘Day N’ Night’ was just out and Paul [Rosenberg] was telling me he liked him too. So he came through and he just was like, ‘Yo I just wanna knock some hooks out for you.’ And he laid two hooks down on beats and we didn’t really get to get knock anything out for him.

“He was telling me he might sign to Kanye and I was like I think you should do it. He’s just like Snoop where the minute the beat came on, he had the melody immediately. So he put the words on a little bit after and any beat we played, if he didn’t get it after like a minute, I'd play something else.

“Then he knocked out the hook for ‘Therapy’ so I had those beats with hooks on them and I was like, ‘He's gonna be that hook dude.’ The way he recorded his shit was so perfect, like his doubles you couldn’t even tell.

“So I had the beat with the hook and I sent it to Cam. Then Cam and Vado got on it. Vado.”

Album: Covert Coup
Label: Jet Life Recordings

The Alchemist:“It was organically planted in organic soil and the seed grew into potent strain of rap music that we clipped and cured. But we didn’t even sell the fucking weed, we gave it away for free. How about that. We coulda sold that weed right? Would you have bought that weed? It was good weed!

That’s my thing now [doing projects with one rapper that I produce entirely]. I got a project Domo Genesis, Action Bronson, Step Brothers, Du-Rag Dynasty, Body James, and I got to finish a Gillie The Kid project too.

“He came through the studio in L.A., the rap laboratory, and we started cooking immediately. He was like, ‘Can we work today? Can I record something today?’ And I was like, ‘Yes you can. If you can write I have a beat.’ We knocked two out that night.

“He came back the next day and we just kept working. At like three or four songs we were like, ‘This is a project. Lets keep going.’ That’s just how it happened really.

“That’s my thing now [doing projects with one rapper that I produce entirely]. I got a project Domo Genesis from the Odd Future, I also got an Action Bronson album, I got a Step Brothers album coming out this year, Du-Rag Dynasty album, a Body James album, and I got to finish a Gillie The Kid project coming out this year. So I've got a lot of funky rap in store. Turning it up man, watch out, here I come. Coming back on a horse.”

Album: Habits & Contradictions
Label: Top Dawg Entertainment

The Alchemist:“I was out here in the West Coast just connecting. My man Brock brought him through to the studio with Kendrick Lamar and Mos Def. It was like a rap camp. We didn’t get anything recorded that day but that’s when I gave him that beat.

I'm gonna be honest that’s maybe one of my least favorite joints on his tape. That’s how good his tape is to me. No bias. I heard Habits & Contradictions and I was like, ‘Lotta good s**t on here I'm definitely not a standout.

“I'm gonna be honest that’s maybe one of my least favorite joints on his tape. That’s how good his tape is to me. No bias. I heard Habits & Contradictions and I was like, ‘Fuck, lotta good shit on here I'm definitely not a standout. I gotta step it up when we do new shit.’ I wanna be the standout, I wanna be the shit where your like, ‘Yo son! That shit son!’

“Schoolboy Q is so dope and he's going on another level. One of the best new artists I’ve work with. I'm hype to even be working with him. I hope I make his album. Q is on another level because he has his whole shit, his live show is dope, his personality, his music the way he records and writes is like no other.

“So expect good from him. Interscope, they didn’t even know what they were getting when they signed him up. They knew but now they’re really seeing. Shout out to the West Coast Puffy, that’s Q. That’s his code name. Code name Puffy.”

Album: Russian Roulette
Label: E1, ALC, Decon

The Alchemist: “[That album is like] Red Dawn, Rocky IV, the video game Russian Attack, and every female Russian assassin in all the movies. Like that look. What was the girl who was going out with Flava Flav? Bridgette Nelson assassin look. And those big furry hats. I wanted to make an album for people that wear that shit.

It's a good way to waste 45 minutes of your life. Roll up, smoke, and wind it back. That’s a good advertisement right? Waste 45 minutes of your life here!

“I didn’t even use any Russian samples, it was crazy. I did some shows in Bolivia last year. I found a record store and the guy who owns the record store in Bolivia was Russian. So that’s how that came about. It's an eclectic mix of music for your listening comfort.

“It's different right? It's a depature, there's no big slamming beats on there, there's no outstanding snare where your like, ‘Wow that’s a great snare.’ There's none of that, it's kinda just morsels. I just wanted to make it interesting. It's a good way to waste 45 minutes of your life. Roll up, smoke, and wind it back. That’s a good advertisement right? Waste 45 minutes of your life here!”