Legendary producer, who has been in the game for absolutely ages now, The Alchemist dropped a new EP, titled The Genuine Articulate in September, and I thought it'd be a good opportunity to review something again, as I've not done one of these in a while.
The Alchemist is known predominantly for his moody and dark boom-bap and collaborating with a mixture of artists from traditional, greazy MC's like Havoc and Roc Marciano, to maybe more alternative sounding ones like Earl Sweatshirt and Westside Gunn. His production style is always well thought through and generally has a traditional sound to it, but he still pushes the envelope in ways like song structure, quirky samples, and his beats challenge his collaborators to tackle them with a unique flow that other producers probably just wouldn't be able to get out of them. At times his stuff sounds flamboyant, aggressive, sombre, or cheerful, he's quite a versatile like that. We hear this on the new project too. The big thing with this one is, Al raps, on every track. Although he produced on Roc Marciano's recent projects, and him and Earl Sweatshirt dropped Voire Dire last year, from what I can remember, he wasn't rapping, whereas he is on this one, a lot.
I'm not gonna profess to say I've heard the stuff he was dropping in the 90s with The Whooliganz, but I was aware that he has rapped before and can rap, but this is the first time hearing him properly.
The opening track Ferraris in The Rain featuring ScHoolboy Q was a brilliant opener. The horns, keys and trumpets and the little break downs of instrumental every 8 bars or so were very catchy. It's hard not to call out Alchemist's flow being heavily similar to that of Roc Marciano's, we hear that also on the last track Seasons Change. I know they worked together a lot recently but maybe Al took a little too much inspiration from Marci. To describe the flow, it's very talkative and a bar can be filled with a quick flow of many words, then there's a pause for thought, then the flow comes back in on the next bar. It's very blunt, a little stop-start and I think Marciano is the king of that style (check out Quantam Leap by Roc Marciano, prod by The Alchemist). Q was aight on Ferraris in The Rain, he sounded a lot like he did on his latest album, Blue Lips.
There are little skits at the end of every track I believe, and the second track Something Light had a great one. The song is this hard-hitting, tough-sounding track, Al spitting a liquid flow with aggressive and violent imagery, drums thumping in the background, relentless alien-like synths hovering over you as you listen. The contrast with the skit at the end is key. The skit is this really genuine, laid back conversation, there's an eastern European woman, dunno who it is or where this skit is taken from, chatting to a group of people, I believe Alchemist and Action Bronson, and they're smoking weed, she's chatting about the similarities between Jamaican and Ukrainian weed, with Al and Action confused and surprised at the randomness of the two countries being compared, to which she has experience to back up her claims that they have similar weed. I definitely recommend this song, there's an element of familiarity to the skit and that situation, I've never had that conversation but I can imagine being in the room with that conversation, the reactions, the dialogue, there's a sweetness to it, and to put it after that track was a moment of genius I think.
I wasn't big on the track Minnesota Fats and the campy guitar riff to be honest. But the next track Scientology featuring Havoc was a mover. The beat was cool, the verses were full of bars, rhyme schemes and two MC's absolutely killing it. Havoc's flow was silly, I loved his closing bars that were hard as hell, "cradle to the grave fucker, H-class ALC my day oner". I think this is one of the funnest features of the year so far. And a spoken outro from Prodigy RIP!
We get a bit more versatility on the track Diego Maradona, with Conway the Machine. Bit of a semi-hype track with a dark and ominous soundscape, Alchemist kills his verse then Conway completely understood the assignment and then some with a smooth and crisp flow.
The last couple of songs were solid. I think the song seasons change is a standout for just how sweet it was. He put away the more brash and cocky subject matter to write about his son and his relationship with his son. It was chilled out, relaxing and just made for a nice closer, it also included a skit to outro, with him and his son having a laugh together
Overall, yeah good project. Some highlight features from Havoc and Conway the Machine. Some really nice beats, some hard bars too. It was nice to get to know Alchemist more as a rapper and a person too. I see this EP as a bit of a celebration of his successes over time and especially recent years where he has worked with some huge names in Hip Hop, producing entire albums, so it was good to get one that was just him and his alone. It's really short but I think out of the 8 songs there's a fair bit you can get out of the EP. It's not his most revolutionary work but I don't think that matters too much. I think this EP works best as nice music to just chill with. You could really dig down in to the lyrics if you wanted to but I think there's better projects for that personally. Yeh good EP, no more to say.
7/10
Star Track - Scientology
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