Armand Hammer on Working with the Alchemist, Getting to Know Each Other, and Wild Audience Moments

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Without wasting anymore time: billy woods and Elucid are two figures who have dominated rap in the 2020s, both by themselves and together as Armand Hammer. When it comes to the latter, they've built one of the most consistent catalogs in recent memory, and that certainly includes their excellent new record Mercy which drops tomorrow. It's also their second record with legendary producer the Alchemist, following 2021's Haram, so between excavating the specifics of that creative relationship and talking about their own close-knit dynamic there was a lot to chew on when we hopped on an hour-long call last month. It was a really great conversation and I'm glad to bring it to my readers today, check it out:

You guys have established a pretty regular rhythm when it comes to putting stuff out. Tell me about the creative process between you two.
billy: It's really just about coming together and deciding, "Hey, we're gonna make a record." Everything stems from there. Each record has its own logic and evolution. There are ways in which we tend to work together that you notice, "Oh, this is a pattern." But making Diabetic Test Strips was very different from making this record—although, making this record kind of didn't make sense. It was much more similar to making Haram. Test Strips was its own whole chamber process,
and Paraffin was also put together in an unorthodox way that had its own logic to it.

There are things I could generalize about. The production choices come from all over, but Elucid is maybe a little more particular. Of course, sometimes there are beats that I might be like, "This is the one," and we do it. But I think both of us come and are like, "Hey, here's sounds, here's things that are happening." As far as collaborations, it tends to be the same way. He tends to have more of his ear to the ground and is like, "Oh, this might be interesting or cool." I tend to be the one who's gonna reach out to situations that are already in existence. "See if Yassin Bey will do this track." He's more likely to be like, "You should check this guy Siifu out"—and two years later, Siifu's a big name, but I didn't even know who he was at the time.

Elucid, I'd love to hear you talk about your ear for production and what you look for when you're listening to music in general.
Elucid: My listening influences and preferences stretch really wide. What I want
to listen to might change depending on the day or the emotion. I receive and listen to a lot of music online these days, and seeing a live act is my favorite thing to do. That really can solidify the experience. In my personal space, I can listen to something in my headphones and really dumb out on it—and then I see it live and then it maybe doesn't actually connect for me. But I love when it does. There's no particular thing that I'm looking for or listening to, but it's something that has to strike an emotional chord within myself.

It's interesting to hear you talk about stuff hitting in a different way live. We were talking a bit about COVID before this interview properly kicked off, and seeing live performances back then was obviously impossible. What was the live experience like for you guys after things opened up again?
Elucid: We started playing shows once things opened up again, so it was all about touring and seeing openers, and artists at festivals. It felt like a weird reunion. I remember being like, "I'm excited to do the show, I'm nervous," and I was talking to people and they were excited to be out of the house and be in the company of others to experience the communion of live music. That sticks out a lot.

billy: It felt like it was forever. The wrapper came off slowly when it came to traveling to do stuff. We went to do this live sort of film with Joseph Mault where we did some of Haram live and were interacting with artists again in those situations. Those are the things that really stick in my mind. I don't even think that I got back into doing a festival that quickly. What really stuck with me is traveling again, being around people, working on and listening to music in person, going to Al's studio and ordering a bunch of food and hanging out.

Elucid: I remember being in Al's house unmasked. Everyone there was unmasked, and I was like, "Yo, I could put my mask on." But I didn't want to be the only one to put my mask on. That's how intense it felt for me, being out in public again. It was like, "Wait, it's normal."

billy: You had traveled before me because you went out to Detroit to do the Small Bills stuff. Coming from New York, where the amount of the mortality levels had been high, I remember that sometimes people would reach out from other places and be like, "Oh, is it really like it is on the news?" It was crazy here. So before we got to that point, it felt like part of an unwrapping of a really sequestered hermetic existence in several boxes. By the time I got to see a show, that was probably the 10th or 12th box that I opened up. Just hanging out with my friend was a big achievement. For a lot of people in other places, it wasn't so serious, whereas here it was literally looking out the window and seeing ambulances racing and seeing them literally bring people out on the stretchers.

Elucid: When I was living in Long Beach, I remember the body bags being stacked waist-high.

I know some people who are still struggling with social anxiety issues following the lockdown portion of COVID—being in large crowds, things like that. Is that something either of you have struggled with?
Elucid: I'm not really sure for me. In that moment, I didn't feel so. I had a young child and a wife, and we were just sequestered off in Long Beach. The masking was what it was. Her family was pretty tight-knit, so we were always around people, in essence.

billy: I wouldn't say there were any lasting neuroses. Still, it was a crazy experience, so maybe I compartmentalized some things at the time. I had friends who really struggled with being creative, and that was not the case for me. I continued to overdrive with all that extra time.

Elucid: I was working in a school, and once the school was closed and I didn't have a job, I remember being pretty depressed about that—not knowing what was going to happen. But I also was excited, because we were working on Shrines and my mind was in the future. That pushed me a little bit.

billy: I was working on records, and it was good for that. You could be like, "Hey, let me just go in this room, away from everybody." Living in New York, where you're on top of each other, I felt like that was useful sometimes—to go in this room and do this in ways that are harder to do than regular times.

This is the second full-length you guys have made with Alan. I'm really curious to hear you guys talk about what it is creatively that works in terms of making music with him.
billy: We're very close in age, we get along, and we keep odd hours, so it can be easy. Sonically, there's always surprises. When we got the one pack with "Laraaji" in it, four of them were already good to go. He's pushing to find new things that push us further. There's familiarity, comfort, and ease, but he keeps you on your toes.

Obviously, he has a very extensive legacy in terms of production and making music at this point. It also feels like he's become something of a newly revered figure to a younger group of listeners. Do you guys have any idea why that might be?
Elucid: He just wants to keep it fresh. He constantly pushes himself and works really hard. He's up all night, sleeps for a couple hours, wakes up, and is back at it again. He was able to to lock in with people like Thebe—someone considerably younger than himself—as well as Action Bronson and Currensy. He was able to reinvent himself a couple of times, very quietly, and it's had a long-standing effect. He's been able to reconnect with younger and younger audiences.

billy: He's present, and when it comes to the collaborators he has, the spotlight is there. The same guy does a Kendrick beat, a Freddie Gibbs record, an Armand Hammer record, and also is really good at marketing himself and being out there in various different ways. If he did a show, later on there's video content of it. He has a lot of things happening, and it's hard for people not to see his work in some sort of prominent way, regardless of what sort of thing they're looking at. If you don't like that, it's all the more reason people are going to be weighing in about XYZ—because it's kind of unavoidable.

I'd love to hear about the first time you guys ever met each other and what your first impressions were.
Elucid: My first impression of woods, before even talking to him, I was like, "This motherfucker is loud." [Laughs] I was getting ready to get onstage, and woods was back there talking to the organizers of the event. I didn't know who he was, I'd never spoken to him, but I just remember the voice. I did the set, he congratulated me, and the rest is history.

billy: Yeah, I was like, "Oh, this is great." I used to collaborate with Uncommon Nasa on year-end festivals, and for that particular one he'd found Elucid. He'd said, "He's down with Tanya Morgan," so I was expecting something very different than the show I got. I exchanged info with him and went home and Googled to try and check out the music. I was like, "I'd like to maybe get him on this record I'm working on." Then I saw this video for "Automatic Writing," and I was really blown away. I reached out, we did the first song, and I was like, "Dang, I need to write better." So I just went from there.

What have you guys learned from each other, as musicians and people?
Elucid: In the midst of making Test Strips, he made fun of how I need to be pretty comfortable—I have to to be very particular about the beat, the moon's got to shine at this particular degree, I gotta have this setup. He was like, "I'm a soldier—just give me a beat and I'll do it, it's that simple." And I was like, "True." [Laughs] There's something really ill about that, to me. He's like, "Yo, just settle down and do the thing. Let's not overthink it, let's not try to be too comfortable." woods inspired me in that way. He has a plan, and he knows how to execute and follow it through from a to b to c in a way that I've never really seen with other collaborators.

billy: I appreciate you saying that. Part of that is that, sometimes I do it and I'm like, "Well, I did it and it came out great. I should've never worried about it." And then there's other times it's like, "Alright, we don't need that. I did it though." Later down the road, there might be a piece of that where I'm like, "You know what? That didn't work on this song at that time, but that worked here, or it might be useful down the road somewhere." Sometimes, you could just do it, but you don't necessarily feel like, just because you did it, that makes it good.

I've learned lots of things from working together, about being a better rapper and making choruses. I learned a lot about beats too, because sometimes I'll be like, "I wouldn't have picked this beat," but when I really stop to listen—and not be listening for what I want to hear, but listening in a different way—I'll be like, "Oh, you know what? This is the one." I've also learned a lot about the value of being more involved in your immediate artistic community and having an ear to the ground—seeing what's happening before it actually happens. There's lots of dope artists that come across our table from working together.

Sometimes it's also about just doing something off of inspiration and not learning too much—or, you know exactly what's going to happen, and you're like, "Okay, this seems I'm feeling this, let me just do it and then figure it out later." I've always been open to different types of beats, and I've always been down to help producers produce. But since we've worked together, I've seen more how you can do things in terms of the production side that might be unexpected. Every time I listen to records like Revelator, which is sonically amazing—I know that comes from a lot of the collaborators, but that's Chaz for sure.

I think I have an expansive palette of beats, but I wouldn't necessarily think to do some of the things Chaz will just get up and do. That's very cool, and lots of those collaborators have proved indispensable, like DJ Haram and Saint Abdullah, who ended up doing a really important record on my album that just happened because I did the feature with them on "Bad Pollen." I was like, "Who did this beat?" And you were like, "They like your music, they said they sent you something and didn't hear back." And I was like, "Well, they should send it again."

The last Armand Hammer record came out on Fat Possum, this one's on Backwoodz. Tell me about the thinking behind that.
billy: Backwoodz does one-record contracts. I'm not trying to take anyone hostage. If you're into doing another one, you do another one. We're usually happy to have people back. An opportunity came up with Fat Possum, there were a bunch of different possibilities discussed, and at the end of the day, that's the one that we went with. There's some cool people over there that we worked with, it was a cool experience, but it was a one-record deal. We did it, and everything has its own logic. It just made sense for us to bring this one back to Backwoodz. We didn't even consider anything else too much.

We talked a little about live music before. Did you guys see the video of those two kids in Italy playing chess in the front row of the MIKE concert?
Elucid: I did see that, yeah.

I'm curious to hear you guys talk about the changing nature of live audience behavior. What have you guys witnessed over the years, and what's stayed the same?
billy: We live in a world where people do all sorts of stuff just to create content or make a moment that they think is funny. It can be pretty lame, but I hesitate to make something more out of it. In my general time of doing this, the differences between audiences now and when I was going to shows are not really related to people's passion, but just diversity of appearances, opinions and tastes that you might see at whatever type of show.

I assume it crosses all genres. "If you're going to an underground rap show, you show up in underground rap clothes." [Laughs] If you were playing some music and somebody was like, "Oh, I like that," you'd be like, "Well, you can't just like this." You might have records on that rub off somebody, and you're like, "Well, I'm not even giving it to people that aren't locked in." Nowadays, people are like, "Oh, this is the first song you ever heard? Great! Here's all this other stuff you should listen to. You don't even listen to rap? It doesn't matter!" The spaces just seem way more inclusive in all sorts of ways.

As far as on a micro level before-and-after the pandemic, I can't say a whole lot. Weird stuff happens, but does weird stuff not always happen at shows? Honestly, if you showing up to play chess, to me, that's more for the audience members. I'm getting my check regardless of what's going on. It's my job. Unless it gets to a point where I can't do my job, I'm going to do my job. I've done shows where I can hear two specific people talking, and you're like, "What is wrong with these people? Am I going to stop the whole show?" Otherwise, the people who are really having the experience ruined are the people who paid to get in. I'll get my money, go backstage afterwards, and continue on. I'll just feel bad for people in the audience who maybe didn't have the experience that they want. But, you're in the audience. If people are acting a certain way that's disturbing your experience, you should regulate it.

Elucid: I feel like we've rarely encountered that sort of behavior. People may talk.

billy: I mean, also, the world is full of weird people, man. Iff we're just talking about somebody being weird...oh man, I did a show in Texas this year where this guy was just shouting his song request at every dead moment, every switchover, everything. I had a little funny joke at first, then it was kind of irritating. But I'm not going to go back and forth. Eventually, the people in the crowd are the ones who are getting irritated if you just keep yelling "Free Bird." I don't know, people are weird. I don't know why you'd do that and not think, "Hey, this is actually going to irritate the artist so much."

Elucid: Remember that drunk lady in France?

billy: Yeah, I had one of those happen recently, in fact. I had to have a whole conversation where I was like, "We gotta have different security at some of these shows," and it was done differently after that. When I was in Dublin, literally on the first song, halfway through "Jumpscare," I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye—but I'm thinking it could be people adjusting something in the back, so I'm just continuing. Then I hear more of a ruckus, I look, and there's this guy attacking the table, pulling wires, throwing my cups of tea—and security wasn't even anywhere near them. A fan actually came onstage, I later found out, and grabbed him. He was having some type of an episode or something. But the drunk woman in France was crazy.

Elucid: She showed up again when I was there in February, apologizing profusely.

That's nice. I mean, people are humans!
billy: I mean, I'll take an apology. Even this one [in Dublin], they threw the guy out, and then his wife was there saying that they'd driven from England. She was really upset after he'd been thrown out, trying to figure out where to find him. I felt bad for what he was dealing with—although I often think we gotta have security by the side of the stage, because if he had just decided to clock me, it would've been over. I'm not looking over my shoulder, nor do I want to be.

But in general, I don't even see that. One of the crazy things I'm really surprised at is the diversity, ages, and backgrounds of a lot of people at the shows. It'll be all the way from grandparents to legit 10 or 11-year-olds, actually.

Elucid: True.

billy: It'll be a lot of people where I'll be like, "You got cool parents." My mother wasn't bringing me to any Armand Hammer show and standing in line to get merch signed.

As your audience grows, does the notion of talking to your audience versus saying what you want to say change? What happens when your audience is quite literally learning about different parts of culture from your music that they themselves are not a part of?
Elucid: I haven't changed. [Laughs] If anything, I want to get even more explicit and more further out there as I possibly can. It hasn't shifted. Sometimes I wonder, when I think about the listenership, as it's expanded, I wonder what people actually receive out of it. I want to go as far as I can and more for myself without thinking about how it's going to be received, but I also wonder what they actually take away from it. How deeply are you engaging with what I'm saying?

billy: For myself, there are times when I feel like I don't know if I'm doing a good enough job of doing this. I don't want to go out there and make something muddled or confusing out of something that I actually think is interesting. But I try not to consider it too much. Also the way, I write pulls from different strings. Sometimes there are things I might do where an African person might have a different reaction to this than everybody else, and that's okay. You don't want to end up homogenizing everything.

Let's talk movies. What have you guys seen recently?
Elucid: Magic with Anthony Hopkins. I saw it yesterday. It's fantastic. It's from like the '70s. He plays a puppeteer. It's freaky and weird. I really enjoyed it.

I've meaning to watch it. I've seen it pop up on Tubi for months.
Elucid: [Laughs] Yeah, I also saw it pop on Tubi and I was like, "Wow, this is good, dude." It's got the coach from Rocky. What's his name? Burgess Meredith. He plays his agent, Anthony Hopkins.

billy: Recently, I saw One Battle After Another, as well as a movie called Islands. I recently saw this really good movie called Vermiglio. But the stand out for me was On Becoming a Guinea Fowl.

I saw that recently too.
Elucid: I loved it.

billy: I thought it was an incredible piece of work, and it resonated on many levels for me, because culturally, the people who are being represented, in my family, it's the same people who at one point were in the same country. It brought back a lot of memories from my childhood. I thought it was incredibly well done on pretty much every level.

Yeah, it's one of the best I saw this year, absolutely.
billy: Oh, everybody saw it. Wow. Here I am thinking I'm spreading the gospel.

Elucid: I mentioned it to you!

billy: You mentioned it to me, but I had seen its existence before then, because I fly Delta so much. It was in the Delta movies, and a couple times I picked something else. That's how I saw Vermiglio too.

Quelle Chris has two features on this record. He's someone whose overall catalog I've really come to appreciate in recent years. Talk to me about what you guys admire about him.
Elucid: Quelle is incredible. Master stylist, super witty, can like match any flow that you throw at him before taking another few steps extra. He's a total jazz man in so many different ways. He's just a really cool guy. Also, his live set—the way he's able to connect with the fans, he does "How Could They Love Something Like Me?" from Deathfame and literally sit on stage on a bar stool and sing the song. It's bringing people to tears at a rap show, man. I've never actually seen other people do these things—and in the next breath, he just gets the room hot. He's able to manipulate his own and other people's emotions. He's masterful, man. It's really inspiring to me.

billy: He's a singular artist. There's certain songs that only he can make, and there's things he can do that other people can't. Amazing artist, great human being, inspirational to be around. Don't have a bad thing to say about him, tons of respect. I hope to collaborate with him lots more.