Chicago DJ and producer Rick Feltes, better known as DJ Rude One, just released a new solo album, Onederful, and a crowd of hip-hop heavies show up to sing his praises on the opening track: Common collaborator Twilight Tone, Gang Starr cofounder DJ Premier, and legendary New York MC Kool G Rap. Feltes, 42, hasn’t released a full-length in 12 years—that’s when he dropped From Now On with Single Minded Pros, his duo with producer Keino West (aka Doc West). As the Reader‘s Bob Mehr wrote in 2004, Feltes recruited some of the guest rappers for that album by cold-calling them—that’s how he got Kool G Rap, who’s been a fan of Feltes ever since.

That was the Goodness series?

 It’s crazy. The last beat I ever made, when I was living in New York—it was like the fall of 2006, and I made this beat that I just thought was so crazy. Everybody I played it for thought it was wack—some of my best homies and closest rapper friends. I’m like, “Yo, you have to hear this.” They’re like, “Nah, I’m not feeling that at all—that sucks.” Shortly thereafter is when I decided to just put it down and chill for a little bit.

 But then I started to get back into [crate] digging hard-core again, and I updated my equipment. I went out and got one of those MPC Renaissances, ’cause I couldn’t rely on Zip disks anymore, and started fucking with it. Stuff just started coming to me.

 I don’t know, man. I just worked with the records that I had. Everything you see, everything’s sample based. I guess I’m just drawn to a certain sound when I’m sampling. Two of the beats on there, though—like I said, the one that I mentioned that started this all is the Roc Marciano track, “Triple Black Benz,” that was from ’06. The other record I did with him, “Murder Paragraphs,” that beat I made in 2004, with an MPC3000 and an old S950. The loop was just so cold—I thought, “This is perfect.” We were vibing in the studio—Roc knocked out “Triple Black Benz” so fast. He was like, “Yo, let’s do another one.” I’m like, “Shit, I’m not even making beats right now.” I just happened to have, like, a two-track in my iTunes. We loaded it up and he rapped to that.

 I let him hear, like, what I’d done so far, and he was really fucking with it. So I sent him the beat and he gave me that back. I was like, “Man, I really gotta put, like, Chicago something to it, as far as the cuts go.” And then with that King Louie interview with [CNN anchor] Don Lemon, that’s where that came from. But yeah, the Jeremiah Jae [track], it wasn’t about him being from Chicago or anything like that, but when I got it back the record just sounded so Chicago to me.   What’s your relationship with Chicago at the moment? Are you back in New York now?