The Alchemist and Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) have made some new heat, which the former debuted at a recent event in Los Angeles.
The one-off show featured New York rappers MIKE and Wiki, with whom The Alchemist released a project titled Faith Is a Rock in September. Their appearance at the Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles, CA on Thursday (November 30) marked their first time performing as a team.
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Though the name of the new Alchemist x Yasiin Bey song is unclear, the audience seemed to respond well.
Check it out below.
The Alchemist may also be working on another collaboration, if Kid Cudi‘s response to a fan’s observation last month is any indcation.
On November 10, Cudi replied to a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) that read, “boom bap Cudi >>> The End,” referencing his Man on the Moon 2 track.
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The Cleveland native took the message to heart, replying: “Wheres @Alchemist when u need him man!!! Lets do a album FUCK.”
The producer saw and responded to the message just hours later, writing: “long overdue! They dont know we go back! im getting your # from [Jason] Goldwatch asap.”
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The Alchemist’s note about going back with Kid Cudi is more right-on than many fans of both artists might realize.
The two artists do in fact have a long history, going back to their first collaboration over 15 years ago. Kid Cudi appeared on The Alchemist’s 2008 song “Therapy,” which also featured Blu, Evidence and — on some, though not all versions of the song — Talib Kweli.
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Jason Goldwatch, the would-be dot connector Al mentioned in his tweet, is a director who has links with both artists. He has worked with Cudi for over a decade, including on the recent video for “ILL WHAT I BLEED.”
Goldwatch likewise has a long-running creative partnership with The Alchemist, including work on a short film they made together, 2021’s Cycles.
The Alchemist has made a number of collaborative projects with artists like Freddie Gibbs, Prodigy, Action Bronson, Curren$y, Larry June, and Boldy James, among others.
As for Yasiin Bey, he made headlines over the summer for speaking about the importance of De La Soul — amongst other things — and pointing out how the groundbreaking Hip Hop trio helped shape his early art.
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Speaking to Audible for an interview published on July 7, the artist formerly known as Mos Def explained how he was looking for things that demonstrated the reality of the world around him, but that it wasn’t easy to find until he spotted other like-minded souls like the aforementioned trio.
“Watching the world just be on fire, you know,” he began. “Or at least, my community, with the crime and the drugs. And there was a very indifferent attitude towards what was happening to us, too — there was no telethons for crack babies. So I was like, this popular cultural narrative isn’t working for anybody, you know?”
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He continued: “So much got lost getting the game that it wasn’t working. So I started writing, just about what I was seeing, and about what I felt. And my brother, God bless him […] we used to watch TV. Video Music Box. And Common‘s ‘Easy’ came on from Can I Borrow A Dollar? And my brother was like, ‘We can do this!’ So he just started making connects with local talent shows. And a year or two later, lo and behold, I got the deal.”
Bey went on to explain that De La Soul offered him a balance between the likes of Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Bad Brains and Rakim.
