The Alchemist Reveals Backstory Behind His Kendrick Lamar “Meet The Grahams” Beat

When the world found out that The Alchemist produced the beat for Kendrick Lamar‘s downright terrifying Drake diss, “meet the grahams,” they immediately barraged him with questions about how it came to life. Up to this point, the producer was pretty tight-lipped about the whole situation, only letting off some jokes here and there plus vague remarks on its release. But during a new interview that surfaced online on Thursday (September 26), he went into a little more detail about the haunting song. While there are still plenty of unanswered questions, it’s still exciting to hear this glimpse into one of 2024’s most notable hip-hop moments.

“That was a gospel record. Swear to God,” The Alchemist said of Kendrick Lamar’s six-minute track. “I sent it to him beforehand and he had it for a minute. I heard it when everybody else heard it. It was a trip. Yeah, I was getting a haircut at the studio and it came on the phone. We was listening online, someone was streaming. I thought my phone was bugging. I didn’t know.” We can’t imagine that he knew what that instrumental would become when he sent it to K.Dot.

Elsewhere, Uncle Al had a lot of jokes to respond to incessant questions about the Kendrick Lamar track on Twitter. “Questlove made it known that you weren’t aware Kendrick was going to use your beat for meet the graham’s. Did it bother you that Kendrick did that? Was it okay with you that Questlove gave us that information?” a fan asked. The Alchemist replied with this: “Nah but I was extremely bothered and downright livid when I realized that all these years I did not know that Cap’n Crunch’s full name is Horatio Magellan Crunch.”

What’s more is that we know that The Alchemist feels pretty proud of this beat, and he should. He even played it at a Los Angeles club a couple of months ago, but at least he didn’t let Kendrick Lamar scare us again over it. We can only wonder what other collaborations and possible astonishments they have collecting dust in the vault, only to emerge in unexpected ways.