Prodigy And Alchemist Break Down Their Favorite Collaborations, Talk Drinking Bong Water

In the span of nearly 15 years, Prodigy and The Alchemist's musical output has been nothing short of astounding. The Mobb Deep veteran and Los Angeles underground alum have clocked in two full-length albums, hundreds of one-off collaborations and a mind-boggling amount of hit singles given their decidedly non-mainstream sounds. Yet through all the label change-ups and legal drama, the duo have maintained a constant sonic cohesiveness that escapes most hip-hop duos.

"In the past, working with other companies [there] was this pressure we always felt, we had to conform or whatever," Alchemist said. "This [album] is like, yo, we really run this. This is our decision. It’s up to P and whoever else is in the camp, and that’s how we made the record. We didn’t have to answer to no group."

Now, with their second collaborative effort, Albert Einstein, hitting store shelves today via Prodigy's own Infamous Records, P and Al are looking forward. "Where Alchemist is at right now and where I’m at right now lyrically, it’s not like, 'Oh this is what the sound of right now is,'" Prodigy said. "This is the sound of us right now. This is the sound of our hardcore hip-hop right now and to the future."

Yesterday, XXL sat down with P and the A-L-C to break down their long history and their three favorite tracks together. From channeling the sounds of Blaxploitation cinema on Return Of The Mac to Prodigy drinking bong water, here are some of the pair's most meaningful collaborations and some of their best stories.

“The Realest”

XXL: “The Realest” off Murda Muzik was the first time you guys actually worked together. How did that come about?

Alchemist: That was through Infamous Mobb, who I hooked up with when I moved out to New York, through [DJ] Muggs [of Cypress Hill]. I was working with them first. I remember Muggs was like, “Yo, these young dudes are down with the Mobb and they got crazy energy and they’re young.” And you know, I was Muggs’ little homie, so we hooked up and then I remember, we were working in D&D, and we started doing thug music originally. I remember we thought it was going to be an Infamous Mobb sound, and I remember they called P on the phone—I didn’t know P yet—and were like, “Yo, I want you to hear this.” Maybe they were lying now that I think about it. I think it might have been [Ron] Gotti or somebody, but they were like “Yo, we’re gonna play it for P.” And I was like “Oh shit, no.” And then they told later that they wanted to bring it to the studio so P could get on it and maybe make an album. That’s how we started working. It was funny because every time I would come through, Hav would be there or P would be there. I would come through, I had this one DAT with mad beats on it and that’s how “The Realest” came about, ‘cause it was one beat on there that they both on separate occasions would go, “Yo, I like that one.” You know what I mean? And that ended up being that beat.

Before that, you had worked with guys like Dilated Peoples, Tha Alkaholiks, The High and Mighty. P, had you heard some of what he’d done with underground MCs prior to working with him?

Prodigy: Nah, the first time I heard Al [was] when he came to the studio with that DAT and played me them beats. That was the first time I ever met him and heard of him. As soon as I heard the beats I was like, “Wait a minute, what’s going on here?”

Alchemist: [Laughs]

Alchemist The Fed: "I Brought The Bong To Queensbridge"

When you guys first started working together, were there any kind of good stories that you guys can remember and pinpoint like, “Oh that was back in that era.”

A: There was one time I came through with this outfit on, man... [Points to a picture of Macklemore in a fur mink], crazy dope. P was impressed by my chinchilla, you know what I’m saying? That was a big moment.

P: I thought Alchemist was a Fed when I first met him. I used to be on some paranoid shit, 'cause I was running around being wild. So when he first came and he was playing the beats, you know, it’s hard for me to trust people right away. So I’m like, “Alright, his beats are dope, but who is this motherfucker man?” ‘Cause a lot of my niggas, they just bring new niggas around a lot. A lot of my people, they always bringing somebody new around, and I be stand-offish. I don’t take kindly to new people and whatnot. So I like the beats, but I’m looking at him like, “Who is this kid man?” Thought he was a Fed, yo.

A: [Laughs] Came in the form of a producer like, “Yo, they’re getting intense now. They got some agents.”

P: I was like the Feds are getting nice [Laughs]. They training their fucking agents to make beats so they could infiltrate. [Laughs]

A: I remember you told me that recently and I remember I asked P, I was laughing, “So when did you realize I wasn’t an agent?” He was like, “When I seen you making some beats, man.” Like, he realized it was real and I was like “alright cool, good looking.”

P: Nah but I was really afraid at first, you know what I’m saying? Make sure he official.

A: Then freeze! Twenty years standing [Laughs].

P: I knew it!

A: This is it. Word up.

P: 20 years later. Crazy! [But] the first day I met him and I heard the beats I already knew. I got a good ear, a pretty good ear, and I already knew he was doing something on another level.

Is it true that you actually taught Big Twinz and the rest of the Mobb how to smoke a bong?

A: I showed him how to smoke a bong. Punched him in the chest so that he would inhale it, then he spilled the whole bong on the floor. I mean, you know, I probably introduced—that’s a horrible thing right?—I introduced the bong to them. Yeah that’s what I did. I get that attribute man, I brought the bong to Queensbridge.

P: The problem is that knowing Al, that was the first time I drank bong water [Laughs]. After you hit the bong, you gotta drink the water. [Laughs]

A: It was funny though definitely. I definitely don’t think I’ve ever seen that, and me coming from LA, I didn’t really smoke blunts like that, you know. I started seeing how they used to—you know how they used to unravel the fucking Swisher and it was like this whole process? Unroll it this and put the outside back on—it was like upholstering a fucking couch.

P: I never did that

A: Yeah it was mad work. Unravel it, put it back. But that shit was—I ended up learning how to do that but then I started learning how to roll it without the outside parts. So then they used to be like, “Yo, roll up an Alchemist.” Cause it was like the part without, I used to roll them without the extra fucking layer. That shit was nasty. Like why do we need this much tobacco? Give me a bong.

P: I used to just split the Dutch down the middle with my nail. Roll it up, all that taking your time, laying it out. Like come on dog, you doing surgery.

“Hold You Down”

With “Hold You Down,” how did those years kind of transition? Where had you guys gotten to in terms of your personal relationship?

P: We was on tour together a lot and we was just in Al’s crib a lot working, studio and soundtrack working. Us, we work every day—Mobb Deep, Alchemist, we in the studio every day working on music. That’s our life, we don’t do nothing else. Make music, smoke weed, drink a little bit, maybe party a couple hours in the club, and then go right back to the studio making beats. So it was at that point with “Hold You Down,” we was just in the crib and I remember Al playing me that shit. I was like “Yo, that’s ill right there yo.” And I just started writing. I wrote that song right there in his crib—my verse rather.

A: After years of doing music it was like the whole crew [was] kinda just an extended family, cause I was living in New York and I’m from LA. It was even to the point where I would feel comfortable to even put words on the beat next to P, you know what I mean, it was like the best ever. I rapped as a kid, but I definitely made my name as a producer. So once I moved out here I was hanging around with Twin and certain people and every now and then I would lay a verse or mess around. But even to feel comfortable enough for it to even get to that level? It was like, “Alright, go ahead say your verse on it too, it’ll fit,” you know what I mean. That was a big step for me.

The whole way it became a record, like he said, we were just doing songs in the crib; it wasn’t like it was like a First Infantry session. That one day, I have footage of that. I remember looking recently at what food we were eating when we were at the table. Like, “What was that food we were eating,” trying to see the formula of how to make a hot [song], you know what I mean? [Laughs] Like, maybe it was that or oh, okay, we ordered from Café Cubano that day so... But I think at the end of the day it was just a moment where we were just in the zone, even the way I hooked that beat up.

You know, Jay-Z and Just [Blaze] had already done that joint [Al Kooper’s “Love Theme] and I don’t think it was the serious time when P and J were going like this [claps] but I think it was a competitive time. And I remember playing the loop, and we were going through some loops and I was like “Yo, what if I flipped it?” You know, Just is my friend, one of the best also, and I remember thinking, “Man, there might be a way we could flip it and chop it differently.” To me, nobody owns a loop, and if you could do it differently and creatively that’s ill, so I think it was partly us trying be competitive too. Like, “let’s see how we gonna do this differently.” And I remember when I was making the beat P was sitting right there, “Nah, put the down [beat] back in on the four,” you know, he kinda co-produced the beat. If you watch the footage, P is like “Nah nah do that right there,” and then when he was saying a rhyme to me I was just doing the kicks live, just to get the feeling of it.

P: Yeah, I just be going with the feeling like, if I got a ill flow to it, I’ll tell Al something like, “Yo put this here, it’ll make the rhyme sound better."

A: Right right. He called it on that one, too. Then once we put it together and it just turned into what it did, I wasn’t thinking like, “yo, this gonna be a single,” or nothing like that.

Rapping With Scott Caan

P, did you know Al used to rap with actor James Caan’s son Scott in The Whooliganz?

P: Oh yeah, I knew he was rapping as soon as I met him. Soon as we started getting cool, he started showing me his partner in rhyme, Scott, and started showing me his old shit and whatnot. Yeah he got that out the way early [Laughs]... nah yeah, he showed me all that early, he knew what time it was, you know what I mean. So I knew he had that in him already.

And Al, is true that you and Scott Caan were working with Dave Faustino [Bud Bundy, Married... With Children] around that same era as the Whooliganz?

A: Dave Faustino and a couple other dudes—Nick, Lou Adler’s son, they had a club called Balistyx every Thursday night, and his father, you know, they did an every Thursday night event. It was a hip-hop club all of us on the west side would all convene and go to. We talking like [will.i.am] before he was in Black Eyed Peas and DJ Speed from NWA. All of us, DJ AM, me, Scott, Evidence [of Dilated Peoples], whoever the whole—like, it’s a place we all used to go to and he was part of the promoting. He helped promote the event and it was already on TV, we was definitely in the mix. He was a cool dude. We were little shits, you know what I mean, 15, dancing and freestyling and partying, you know what I mean.

Were you kinda  gassed that you were hanging out with “Grandmaster B”?

A: Ehh, he was the homie, but I grew up in Beverly Hills, so I grew up around all the famous people’s kids, if not the kids who were already acting, so it was never a thing, but it definitely ill that he was in the mix. Any of the kids that were getting money as a kid acting it was kinda ill, definitely had an angle on the bitches [laughs]. He had one up on the rest of us, you know, he was cool.

“Mac 10 Handle”

I did want to talk to you about Return of the Mac. It’s a really great album and I love the fact that you guys sampled only Blaxplotation soundtracks and that it had that vibe to it. But I was wondering on your end, P, was there—I know this was right before you went away to jail—a sense of urgency with that album, like you had to come really correct with it?

P: Nah, we was just coming up with a concept of, let’s do an album together. [Alchemist] produced the whole thing and we just started throwing around ideas, and the first two songs I had come up with was old ‘70s, like you said, Blaxploitation movies, and then when we heard that we was like, “Yeah, that should be the whole theme of the whole shit.” And then after that we was basically just having fun. It wasn’t really no, “oh we got to do it like this.” Once we got the ‘70s feel we was like, “alright, that’s what it’s going to sound like.” I just write, you know what I’m saying, just do you, write to it. It wasn’t no real sense of urgency. I would say that every time we make a song, we’re dead serious about it though, we’re not playing. We’re really trying to be creative and say shit that nobody said before, make the beat sound in a way nobody ever made a beat before. So we definitely always come with our A-game anytime we doing music. But it wasn’t no sense of urgency.

A: I think I remember P, we came up with the name first, or we were looking at some old footage of something, and you had the gold MAC-10 [chain]. We were bugging you. I was just saying how you set trends with the jewelry.

P: And plus, you know, it was almost like a second solo album for me. So it’s like the return, you know what I’m saying, return of the mac. It was just a play on words.

A: Yeah and that’s what made me want to do that sound a little. Plus I feel like the G-Unit album [Blood Money] had dropped and it did [well], and there were hits on it. I still think that album was slept on. When you go back to it, at the time some people were acting the way they were, and I remember we were sitting like, “We’ll show them.” That to me was also a way to hit 'em with another plate that was hard to show everybody, 50, everybody included, like, “Yo, no matter what we got all these angles.”

P: Yeah, like this is what we do anyway.

A: We weren’t even gonna sell it.

P: We was gonna give it to Whoo Kid to give it out for free as a mixtape. A lot of people, they get confused, because we got so many styles of music, they be like, “oh they fell off, they sound like this now.” Nah homeboy, we sound like everything, you know what I’m saying. We sound like—our style is a lot of different things, so I guess it takes a while for people to figure that out. Do you have to put out a bunch of projects for people to be like, “Oh, I get it now”? Like, they do a bunch of different types of music. Maybe when you get to the 4^th or 5^th project they figure that out I guess. But a lot people, yeah, “oh they fell off,” “oh he sounding soft now,” “oh he don’t sound the same,” “oh they sound like G-Unit,” “oh they commercial now.” We just do us, man. We have fun. We do our music.

But I like that about us. I think that makes us unique, that makes us ill, because when you listen to a lot of other rappers, they in a box, stuck, you know what I’m saying. And then you listen to us, we got a wide range of sounds and music, it’s crazy. We got the party records, we got the records about females, records about drama, records about politics, records about health. It’s so much of a variety.