The Alchemist

Alan Maman, a.k.a. The Alchemist, is a hip hop producer and rapper from Beverly Hills. He went from being an associate of Dilated Peoples to DJing for Eminem, straddling both sides of the conscious/street divide in hip hop.

Are you from a musical family?

Alan Maman: No, but I do remember my mother and father were definitely fans of music. I don’t know if they could sing. My dad was a good dancer, I guess. I don’t know. There’s some old footage of him doing boogies, doing the boogaloo. Other than that, there was not too much, yeah. They were into music, there was always music in the house.

Did you inherit your dad’s boogying ability?

AM: Yeah, I got some killer dance moves, I got some fancy footwork for the ladies. I got super-duper moves, man, let me tell you.

Do your parents listen to your music?

AM: At low volume. Very low, when they’re going through a carwash talking on the phone. Actually, this new album there are certain records on it that my mother and father both say they like a lot. That’s a first.

Switch, Major Lazer

Switch, a.k.a. Dave Taylor, is half of the DJ/production team behind Major Lazer, a dancehall cartoon superhero who is ready to battle the Gorillaz and impregnate Josie & The Pussycats. Just listen to the dang song already.



SWITCH: No, not at all, not at all. My family are more sort of sport-orientated. I don’t know where the music came from in me. I’m not musical at all either, really. I can’t play any instruments. I can’t sing. God knows where it came from in my end, but definitely not my family.

Do your family listen to your music?

SWITCH: It’s taken them a few years, but they’ve finally started to get it. I think.

Alfred Darlington, The Long Lost

Alfred Darlington is half of husband-wife folk duo The Long Lost. He also DJs and produces under the name Daedelus.

“Neither of us grew up in a musical family. Laura’s parents had some background, not really in the arts, but there was always art involved in her life. Her education didn’t stop in school basically. For myself, my father was an experimental psychologist '' there wasn’t any Freudian stuff or Jungian stuff in the house, really different kind of things -- and my mom is a fine artist so I’m familiar with the arts in that way, but neither of us really have people playing instruments around us when we were growing up. It was something that we were both very lucky to be in the same school district where they had a very advanced, wonderful music program where, from a very young age, we were given instruments and able to be passionate about music and have a forum for it and I know it’s a rare thing in America nowadays so we were very lucky in that regard.”

What do your parents think of your music?

“It is kinda funny. For instance, my mom comes from the '60s, she was into these experimental performance art noise bands, but when I very first played her my own music -- I remember very clearly I was playing it for her in my car and I think she was sitting in the back seat. I had just gotten my first real CD, popped it into the player, was really excited, played some moments of music and she asked me, quite earnestly, ‘Is there something wrong with these back speakers 'cause I’m hearing this terrible noise.’ And I had to inform her that actually no it was the song. Little generational misunderstanding.”