Steve 'Flash' Juon“(Hey man it’s a brilliant plan.) But there’s one thing that does concern me though — that curry goat eating, skinny-ass fat Smitty. He controls the brothers around the Carter. It’s time to sing that fat bitch a lullaby. (Rock a bye baby!)” – Nino Brown (Wesley Snipes), “New Jack City“
I already like Alan Maman. I think I like The Alchemist enough that Matt Jost would probably call me a dick rider, though I’d also imagine he feels the same way about people who incessantly praise DJ Premier or posthumously nuthug J Dilla. These are all fair points. I can’t automatically assume that anything Alan does is going to come out solid gold. Sure I thought “Rapper’s Best Friend” was an excellent showcase of his instrumental production techniques, but could he capture lightning in a bottle again on the sequel five years later? Well he’s not making enemies with me by sampling dialogue from one of my all time favorite movies, that’s for sure. The outro to the aptly named “Perfection” and subsequent intro to “Lullabye” are a one two combo, and when he gets into some “Gangster Shit” I only wish the late Prodigy was here to rap on it.
Even when he’s sampling Al has a way of making it sound like he’s not. You hear familiar snippets of things, but then he layers up multiple different pieces of music from what I can only assume is an immense warehouse of record crates, manipulating the pitch and tempo and adding reverb and echo. There are times you hear a classic rap record and realize it’s just an emcee rapping over an equally classic R&B or funk record with little to no change to the original (and I’m not mad about it). Alchemist does more though. He creates a collage out of many disparate parts for songs like “Pain” which aren’t the least bit painful to hear.
In my head I can picture Al sitting in a hazy smoke filled room, light beams peaking through the shades and making the marijuana trail shine all the way down to a glass ashtray, peering from his chair over a SP-1200, an Akai S950 and MPC60, checking notes on his laptop as he punches in one beat after another. Songs like “Killing Me” let me visualize this process in a way that an emcee spitting bars on it would not, even though nearly anybody would sound fresh blessing it.
So yeah, “Rapper’s Best Friend 2” proves he can do it one year apart or five years apart, it really makes no difference. This review also proves my affection for Alchemist remains undiminished. That’s not to say every beat he’s made is the best beat ever made, or that he hasn’t produced some songs for rappers that left me scratching my head like “What? That can’t be Al’s shit.” 4 out of 5 times though he’s going to come correct with it and make you appreciate the immense amount of skill it takes to dig in the crates and make everything old new again.