Alchemist And The Death Of Mass Market Thinking
August 25, 2025·0 comments·zg
After 25 years in the music industry, making beats for some of hip-hop's biggest names, Alchemist was burning out. Maybe even burned out. But then he discovered a formula from - of all places - Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor that changed everything for him.
After all those years of chasing bigger features, bigger budgets, bigger everythings. After being inspired by Jim Jones verses for “crazy money.” After four different versions of the same song that went four ways to nowhere. Trent Reznor breaks through to him on a video.
The moment came as he watched one $20 payment at a time show up via direct payments in PayPal, for an instrumental album (French Blends) that he otherwise couldn’t put out on a label, but he very much could self release on Bandcamp.
Up that point, he had always been a record industry guy. He had only done distribution the old way, because he was succeeding that way, but at the prompting of some friends he tried something new and - it blew his mind. Instead of writing, recording, sending it off and then waiting forever to maybe get paid, this was immediate. One day you’re finished, the next day it’s in the fans’ hands, and the money is in your bank account.
I want my mind blown too. Don’t you?
Read more at cultishcreative.com
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