On Nov. 3, American songwriter, producer, DJ, and rapper, The Alchemist released the second part to ‘Flying High’, which only had eight songs. ‘Flying High, Pt. 2′, its successor, has two more, totalling to almost 30 minutes, although half of the album was just the instrumental counterparts to the first five songs. For a good amount of the songs, I enjoyed the instrumental more than the original.
The Alchemist including simple instrumentals was no surprise, as he is more of a producer who produces beats, usually collaborating with rappers to create the “fuller” versions of the song. This is comparable to Japanese record producer and my personal favorite, Nujabes, who would team up with rappers to rap over his relaxed, jazzy beats, similar to what The Alchemist does.
Flying High, Pt. 2 is a complete upgrade from the first part, and this is shown prominently throughout the album and can be heard on the very first track, “Turkish Link”, rapping over jazzy tunes with the horns adding for an even sweeter listen. After a strong start, the Alchemist teams up with Conway the Machine to rap on a slower, deeper beat to create “Phil Drummond”, where the two talk about their social status
The track that stands out the most to me is “Royal Hand”, featuring Gangrene. I found out that the two have been on hiatus, but this song makes it feel like they had never even left, colored with many different sounds, from a man talking in the background to a heavy beat playing in which Gangrene is heard rapping over. This song honestly sounds like there’s a strong string instrument being played in addition to the strong melody. “Royal Hand” strays away from the chill, relaxed beats heart throughout the album.
I like Flying High pt. 2 even better than the first, everything about it was perfect, the featured artists helping the Alchemist produce an album similar to Westside Gunn’s 2020 album, ‘Pray for Paris’, and overall, I enjoyed listening to this album, it’s one of the best follow up albums I’ve heard from the Alchemist and probably one of the better follow up albums in general.
