With Thanksgiving a little over a week away, labels are hoping consumers back away from the holiday spread long enough to dish out some cash for the bevy of albums being released during the fourth quarter. The Alchemist [click to read] hopes to have the best of both, as the versatile producer and emcee releases his digital EP The Cookbook today.
“It was inspired by The Anarchist Cookbook,” Al tells HipHopDX. “On this one, I treated each song like a dish. The ingredients are gonna be the artists and what I use to make the beat. Preheat the MPC oven to 400 degrees, and mix in the Long Island Mobb Deep scallops with some Nina Sky flavoring spice and boom. Since this is a digital release, we wanted to do something cool.”
While some producers use ProTools and e-mails to stockpile mismatched feature appearances, Alchemist says chemistry can be maintained, if the technology is used right. He used both live and virtual studio sessions to secure features from Jadakiss [click to read], Evidence, Snoop Dogg, Kid CuDi, Blu [click to read] and others.
“Some people have the A&R’s and managers send files back and forth,”Al says. “But I’ll discuss how we should do the song with people. I send them the beat, and then they’ll two-track it and e-mail that back to me. We vibe off of what works and what gets fixed. Later, I line the finished vocals up to the beat. Evidence and I [click to read] have done that from New York to LA, and we’ll end up doing like 10 mixes.”
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Alchemist says he also has good news for those who have been patiently waiting for his upcoming full-length album.
“We decided we want to build up the momentum for Chemical Warfare,” he says. “This is like putting out breadcrumbs to lead to the real meal. These songs will most likely be on the album. If you buy this EP, they’re doing something with iTunes where there’s a ‘complete my album’ deal that keeps you from buying the same tracks again.”
Al kept the concept theme going when it was time to make a video for the EP’s lead single “Lose Your Life,” [click to watch] where the song’s title is taken literally. The clip world premiered at OnSmash.com yesterday, and is currently available in the HipHopDX audio section.
“All I can say is, ‘Rap Zombies,'” he adds. “I just threw the dice for this ‘Lose Your Life’ video. I didn’t wanna do the regular video, where I’m just standing behind them like, ‘Yeah, you know what I’m saying? This is my video too!’ We did this cartoon with my friend Devin Flynn. He’s a super-talented animator, and his show Y’all So Stupid just got picked up by Adult Swim.”
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The Cookbook was officially released today and is currently available for $3.99 on iTunes.
