Thursday 09-09-04 3:00pm, I get the call out and on the other line is the Midtown Manhattan producer named Alchemist. The West Coast native MC/Producer was born in to the game at age 13 running with Cypress Hill, Soul Assassins, Muggs, House of Pain and Funkdoobiest. By age 15 Alchemist was rocking shows with his crew Wholigans. After much time spent with Muggs, Alchemist continued to make beats, roughing out the edges as an undercover master of the ASR. Alchemist has produced beats for many well know names in the industry like Nas, Jadakiss, Mobb Deep, Dilated Peoples, Cypress Hill, Snoop Dogg. Alchemist got a shot and was featured on Muggs Soul Assassins Vol. Two, he produced “Thug Music” for Mobb Deep. They like it so much they put the track on their album. Alchemist is dropping his newest album entitled The Alchemist presents 1st Infantry which is on Landspeed. Alchemist has also started a new label called ALC Records. Sixshot.com had a chance to have a few words with the man called Alchemist and this how it went:

Sixshot.com: When is the album dropping?
Alchemist: Sept. 21 it got pushed back 2 weeks

Sixshot.com: Who is on the album?
Alchemist: Mobb Deep, D Block, Cypress Hill, Dilated Peoples, MOP, Devin Dude. I basically worked with my circle of friends on this project. We got a female artist name chinky, she is really dope she is like R&B artist she is on the album

Sixshot.com: When did you hook up with Mobb Deep?
Alchemist: We really haven’t put anything out there yet. This is something me and Havoc decided to do but being that he was working on the Mobb Deep album and I was working on my album we didn’t really get a chance to hit anybody with the joints yet. The company is called Quiet Storm productions with me and Hav doing the beats. We do a lot of beats together anyways so we thought it would be a good idea to do that.

Sixshot.com: Who is the The Alchemist Inspiration?
Alchemist: DJ Premier is a good friend of mine as well an inspiration in production. I always looked up to him.

Sixshot.com: When did you hook up with Premier?
Alchemist: I hooked up with Premier in 1993 when I was on tour with Cypress Hill in Roseland, New York and Premier came out to the show. He was already someone I looked up too anyway even though I wasn’t making beats yet, as a producer he was like my favorite. So we got to meet for a minute and we kicked it chopped it up and he was mad cool. Maybe 4 or 5 years later I moved out to New York and he showed me mad love. I told him I was doing beats now and he remembered me.  Primo’s like that kind of dude. Ever since then he’s like extended out a hand. He said anytime you need me just call. So he started bringing me around D&D around the time he was working with Jay-Z. He introduced me to Jay-Z early on he was like this Alchemist he got beats. He hooked me up with Group Home you know like co-signing me. You no that helped a lot he is like one of my best friends.
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Sixshot.com: What would you consider your self first a producer or an MC?
Alchemist: I’m a producer first now. That’s what I would call my niche. On my album I made a choice not to rhyme a lot on it but to do what I do best which is beats? I did not want to throw my fans off by rhyming too much. I didn’t want my fans to think in order to like my beats you had to like my rhymes. I didn’t want to push it on cats like that.

Sixshot.com: Where do you live and where are you from?
Alchemist: I’m from Los Angeles, yeah Soul Assassins that my camp.

Sixshot.com: Do you see the golden era of hip-hop coming back or gone for good?
Alchemist: You can’t travel back in time spiritually, mentally, or physically, so you can’t really do that with the music either. That music represented that time and what was going on. Music is a product of life and environment so when life changes you will never be able to go back and duplicate that era. To show a parallel example with the whole Bush issue, Public Enemy and groups like Poor Righteous Teachers were speaking there minds on similar topics back in the days. So some music will reflect the past but never the same.

Sixshot.com: Who would Alchemist like to work with in the future?
Alchemist: Jay-Z is someone I’d like to work with. We met years ago and the connection was there but we haven’t made it happen yet. Although he is in retirement I think I have the beat to make him come out of retirement.

Sixshot.com: Is Hip-Hop alive or dead?
Alchemist: It is very alive in the sense where it is giving birth to children, aunts, uncle’s and everybody its very alive.

*Disclaimer: Exclusive Alchemist interview and text was conducted by SixShot.com.  No part of this interview may be duplicated without written permission from SixShot.com.  The interview content or text layout may not be altered in any shape or form.