Before deck-happy cool kids like Pharrell and Lupe Fiasco made it okay to "kick, push" in the 'hood, producer/rapper, Alchemist was getting his grind on in southern California. Hailing from Santa Monica, Al was getting busy on a 'board way before he got busy behind the boards producing for acts like like Mobb Deep, Jadakiss and Lil' Wayne. As a teen he skated with legends like Christian Hosoi and competed against notables names like Guy Mariano. ALC took a break from prepping his new album, Chemical Warfare, to sit down with SL to talk about his stripes as a skater. Read more after the jump.




Every now and then we'll see you doing something related to skate. I saw you in an Evidence video, popping an ollie on a wall. Y'all were playing SKATE and you were trying to land this trick.

Whatever the move was it definitely dated me as far as how far back I've been skating. It's probably an ancient move. Kids are probably like, "What the f*** was that?" It definitely put me in the chronological order of like the '80s. It's like the equivalent of a retro sneaker.

So did he [Evidence] kind of get you back into skating more often, or at least being connected to it?

Nah, just being in LA. One of my big homies, his name is Block. He's like an O.G. in Venice Beach, he owns Venice Originals skate shop. He's a photographer, he was a video director, he did "Runnin'" for Pharcyde, album covers, all types of shit. And as kids, we always used to skate, in Venice, or Santa Monica, wherever it was. So kind of just being back out in LA, being out by the beach, and just having time, being free. Some days I ride my bike, sometimes I go skate. I'm not out there competing. I'm very cautious. It's fun.

I know that you competed against Guy Mariano back in the day.

The thing about skating is that through Block, a couple of friends and growing up in Santa Monica, people like Mark Gonzales were dudes we'd just used to see on the beach. Christian Hosoi was one of Block's best friends. Scott Oster, all the Dogtown originals like Aaron Murray, Tim Jackson, Jessie Martinez, these were people who we used to look up to before I was a rapper or a producer. And then I became a rapper with the Whooliganz and they all knew me through that. So the thing with skating is that it was big and then it left and then it came back and it was big [again] and then it went away. Tony Hawk made it something bigger than what it was, now it's so accepted and it's ill where it's at now. I don't want people to get it confused. I don't want to use it as an image. Like if anything, I want to find a group of kids that are good at skating and produce them as artists. Like, Prodigy's [Mobb Deep] son, is sick!

He skates doesn't he? I saw him with a skateboard one time.

He's on the verge of getting sponsored. He's very good, and he's serious about it. That's the little homie. I take him out to the parks, take him to LA with me.He skated with everyone at the beach. I'm trying to help him to become somebody who's really good because I see it in him like the way he has his drive. It's a trip to me, I think the lines are blurred now as far as skating, art, music, rap, where I feel like I could find a bunch of kids that skateboard and rhyme because that's what we used to do. We all did everything. It wasn't any real lines of what it was supposed to be, so it's just that energy of the young kids. Skating is aggressive. And it also teaches you how to be creative and original. Because every skater has to have their own style-that's what separates them. Like, Christian and Tony had different styles, even though they used to go against each other. That's where I first learned about style, before rap-was skating. Like certain dudes, they would approach the curb when they grinded with a certain movement of their body, that just looked cooler. It was like, "Oh that guys got style with his s***." Somebody else would do a longer grind but he'd look all bumpy or too stiff, so his style wasn't as dope. So skateboarding promotes originality because you gotta have a style, and it forces you to be creative with them, the same way beats are. You find a record that isn't really meant for this and you're gonna like flip it into something. You find a curb, you find a staircase or something in the city that's not really meant for you to do, and you use it.

Did you ever get to skate with any of those guys like Mark Gonzales back in the day? I mean, they were at different levels than you at the time right?

Of course. We were kids. I wasn't even close to the level of talent. We looked up to them. But through one guy or another, we had friends who had a friend, who would make it possible for us to be around those people. With us it was usually Block who was connected to all those worlds and that's how I knew Aaron Murray or Scott or Jessie. But we were always the little homies. I got pictures of me skating with Christian at half-pipes and stuff when we were kids. But we were just lucky to be there. It wasn't like we were on the level with them

.

When you started your music career in the group Whooliganz, were you still hanging around with pro-skaters, or were you just into rap at the time?

No, we were still skating. When we did a tour and went overseas, we took our skateboards with us. We were walking in Amsterdam holding our skateboards like weapons.

[Laughs] Really?

We heard it was really hardcore over there. We were about 16 like, "Yo it's grimy out here." I still got pictures of all that s***. We had Seth [Binzer] with us--the guy from Crazy Town who's on that show now. You know, the "out-of-control-guy" on Celebrity Rehab.

Do you collect skate decks?

Just the ones I was skating on. I never had the ill collection. I just had a funny picture I was looking at . . . you can see the old boards and my man's half-pipe. [Takes out photos of himself as a teen].

You look like you were going hard!

With the little mini ramp. We were getting busy back in the day. It was never really enough to get serious-serious.

I see you got a Steve Caballero board.

Half of those were my brother's boards. That's like stuntin' back in the day.

Word. It's like wearing all your jewelry at once. It's the same s***!

[Laughs] was trying to stunt. I even had my hands up like, "C'mon man, you gotta stunt out." Powell Peralta was our favorite s***, of course the Mini-Dressen, SMA [Santa Monica Airlines] anything .