The Alchemist Talks His Work With Nas & SchoolBoy Q In Hip-Hop Masterclass

The Alchemist detailed his production technique on Nas' "My Will" and SchoolBoy Q's "Kno Ya Wrong" in an Aulart hip-hop masterclass.

The Alchemist is dropping production gems. The legendary producer walks viewers through several of his production techniques in a new five-hour hip-hop Aulart masterclass, detailing his work on Nas' "My Will" and SchoolBoy Q's "Know Ya Wrong." On the 2007 Nas track, Alchemist used an ASR-10.

“Good thing about the ASR-10, there’s only eight tracks,” says The Alchemist, whose Masterclass has 23 chapters on sampling, stacking vocals and self-promotion. “That’s all you had to work with. This particular beat, I only had four tracks out of the eight that I used.”

He continued, "There's phases. When you're a student, you develop your style. You become your own thing. Later on, you become a teacher and then you're teaching. If you get past that teaching stage, you get to a stage where the student becomes a teacher. Now, if you're wise enough, you can learn from your students. That's the final stage. Those are all stages that I think are vital."

Also in the masterclass, the producer, whose real name is Daniel Maman, explained his methods of evolving as a businessman aside from production.

“There’s a lot of ways you can monetize from the music,” The Alchemist said. “I think it’s important that you remember that it’s not about the money off of the music. This is a concept that took us older guys some time to wrap our brains around.”

His latest collaboration album The Elephant Man’s Bones with Roc Marciano was released in August.

The Aulart masterclass titled "The Alchemist: Beatmaking & Sampling for Hip-Hop" is available for order here.