Bio
A bit about DJ Alkemy
DJ Alkemy is a producer/DJ from Newport, Wales, UK. One of the hardest-working producers out there.
He has been a huge music fan from a very early age, and he credits his mother as his earliest influence. Her love of soul, reggae, and general eclectic music taste rubbed off on him very quickly. When he was around 10 years old, his cousin introduced him to Hip-Hop through the medium of breakdance. His cousin was a B-boy in a local breaking crew, and he would watch them practice in his parent’s kitchen while his cousin was supposed to be babysitting. From that point on, he developed an affinity for Hip-Hop culture and all its elements.
A fan first, Alkemy had a huge CD collection as a youngster and was always the go-to person for compilation mixtapes around his neighborhood. His 16th birthday was the day he got his first pair of turntables, bought for him by his then girlfriend’s father. That started his obsession with scratching, mixing, and collecting records. Developing a love for production was always going to be a natural progression.
His first foray into performing live, other than DJ’ing, happened via a chance meeting with a group of lads touting their CD’s outside a Skindred concert. This then led to him meeting up regularly with their band, Jugganote, and being their scratch DJ. That manifested itself in meeting an emcee called Pun Ra, who, along with Alkemy and some members of Jugganote, formed the Knights of Boom. Still just concentrating on DJ duties rather than production, he would constantly ask questions to the KOB producer (Doc BlacDaWho). The allure became too strong, and he would use the money from a car crash payout (non-serious, BTW) to buy his startup equipment, and he would soon be making beats full time.
Fast-forward 2 years, and he would form Applied Science along with fellow KOB member Pun Ra. Their shared love of Hip-Hop and blues resulted in their debut album, “Booze, Blues & Hip-Hop.” Their follow-up album, “We and the Devil” saw Applied Science picked as “artist of the week” on BBC Radio Wales, the album picked as part of the “Best Hip-Hop on Bandcamp” editorial blog, and play live support for the likes of Pharoahe Monch, RA The Rugged Man, Dub War, Pete Cannon & Dr. Syntax, Ugly Duckling, and many more.
Since then, Alkemy has been working non-stop with artists all over the globe. From creating transatlantic groups like Wasp-18b (with Virginia, US emcee Empuls) and Mise En Garde (a mesh of Applied Science and Wasp-18b) to joining Fire Team Alpha, a collective of producers, DJs, and emcees from all over Canada, the US, and the UK, Their single, “Ambrosia,” produced by Alkemy, received spins on Shade 45 in New York and played multiple times on both DJ Premier’s “Live From HeadQCourterz” radio show and DJ Eclipse and DJ Riz’s “Rap is Outta Control” show.
With an unwavering work ethic, he has numerous projects out there and is always working around the clock on music with all manner of artists worldwide. Whether it be Hip-Hop, soul, or more experimental music, he doesn’t conform to any rigid sound and enjoys nothing more than being steeped in creating and listening to music. From digging for samples to listening to obscure Prog Rock and watching 80’s sci-fi films to checking out the soundtracks, Alkemy has an unquenchable thirst for music and is frankly, slightly obsessed with it.
