Make way for the Stepbrothers.
The Alchemist had a busy year in 2013 with collaborations with Prodigy of Mobb Deep and dropping his third installment of his well-known mixtape series, The Cutting Room Floor. For 2014, the emcee & super producer is looking to tread down another road with his long-time homie Evidence. The duo hit the studio to cook up their next album under their joint alias The Stepbrothers.
“There’s a crazy dynamic in this group,” said Evidence, “because you got Alchemist as a producer, Alchemist as an emcee, there’s so many dynamics to it. And then me doing things like dilated or solo or making beats or whatever. It’s all over the place and we’re trying to bring it all together.”
Their new album, Lord Steppington, is set to featured the likes of Styles P, Roc Marciano, Action Bronson and many more. The project even created a reunion of The Whooliganz, which included Evidence and actor Scott Caan. The Source got to chop it up with Evidence and Alchemist on what to expect from the album, their anticipated tour this January, and more.
The Source: This album has been in the works for a minute. It was thought that might not even happen. How does it feel to prove everyone wrong?
Evidence: That’s awesome that people are even talking about it like that. I mean some of them are right, some of them are not right. Some are still left up for interpretation. Really it was just us linking up to make music. I’m over Al’s a lot whenever I’m in town. So we’ll smoke some weed and Al will be like “What’s up you got a rhyme?” I’ll put a rhyme down and then we’ll take a picture for Instagram. It’s really not that deep, it’s just what happens. We basically started featuring each other on different records. Instead of putting “featuring Alchemist” or “featuring Evidence”, we just put Stepbrothers in parenthesis and people started digging that and requesting it. But it was never anything like “We’re going to be The Stepbrothers”. We had a lot music to shape up so we did that and then put it out. I’m just blessed to have it because it’s been a lot of fun for me.
What was the intended direction you guys wanted to take the album?
Alchemist: Just to go where no rap album has ever gone before. Humbly though, very humble.
Do you think any of tracks would be fit to get radio play?
Evidence: No, I don’t think they were meant to be but if it were to be considered in any daytime rotation from front to back, just throw it on if you’re bold enough. And it would work, definitely. It would be like a shock to the system. It’ll get your blood rushing.
Alchemist: You gotta be bold. We never really thought about radio but we thought about the DJ’s and what would want them to play on their shows.
Were there any samples in particular that stood out to you?
Evidence: I mean things all intertwine. Like “Dr. Kimble” is like the end of the credits. Watch the credits like it plays the full song and then another song but the credits are so long. Most of the samples are in the second part of the credits. But there are things like that where still you may not even realize it. But there’s no famous shit, it’s all past, hit records you know?
Do you feel like your feature-less tracks like “Swimteam Rastas” and “Legendary Mesh” are your stronger tracks?
Evidence: Alchemist said the other day “I put up a beat and you either want to write to it or you don’t want to write to it.” It’s real simple. Either it makes your pen move or doesn’t make your pen move. All of the beats on this album made the pen move. It’s like asking an artist which one he likes. I like all of them. It’s all in the eye of the beholder. Any which way, love, hate or in between but I like this art exhibit. I think they’re all visually unique.
With this album, what was something you attempted that you’ve never done before?
Evidence: For me personally to be involved in something like this, it’s not easy listening. Sometimes you try to make records that are soulful to the ear or whatever. I been going through a lot of personal shit in my solo records, talking about a lot of shit, and trying to establish Evidence as a solo artist. I definitely look forward to performing it all live on stage and perfectly bringing it all to life.
Any plans to tour?
Evidence: Yea, we’re leaving to New York in a couple weeks to prep and then from there we’re going to Europe with MadChild & DJ Revolution & Termanology, Reks & DJ Deadeye. We’ll be coming back to hit up Colorado and Los Angeles.
Tony Centeno (@_tonyMC)
