In a rough little row of strip offices on Ashland Avenue, past giant suburban Evanston homes and only three blocks away from the Evanston post office, a glass door bears a stenciled green business title, “EV Productions.” Walk in, past the Mac computer, the cardboard boxes and the small kitchen, make a right, and you will enter a fully loaded recording studio, home base to one of Chicago’s most promising and prominent DJ and production duos, the Single Minded Pros.
SMP’s new release, “From Now On,” is a production showcase. Beatmakers DJ Rude One (Rick Feltes) and Doc West (Keino West), have used all the clout they garnered while touring with the likes of J-Live and Last Emperor to stamp a creative imprint on local acts. This has lead them to forge an album with a myriad of emcees they have always wanted to work with, allowing them to convince “underground” giants like Kool G. Rap to trust them to make banging beats.
“We were like, ‘This dude’s dope, but we don’t always like the beats he rhymes on. He just needs a dope beat with a lot of scratching on it,'” Feltes said.
“I want to look back on this (and say) we got to fuck with all the cats we wanted to fuck with,” Feltes added.
And fuck they will. Because on Friday, SMP will DJ their album release party at The Metro, 3730 N. Clark, with such icons as KRS-One and Kool G. Rap.
“As far as being our show, this is the biggest,” Feltes said.
SMP has come a long way since Feltes and West met in Massachussets in 1991 at a house party they were both DJing. West said he was “DJing nightclubs at 16,” while Feltes got his first turntable set at age 13.
“We had similar taste in how we spun and how we thought about rap music,” Feltes said. “(So) in ’94 or ’95 we decided to do production together.”
West and Feltes worked independently of each other, scouring record stores for samples, crafting beats and giving each other feedback, then revising those beats. This kind of creative process caused SMP to spend three years making “From Now On.”
To label SMP’s sound is difficult, but both West and Feltes love “that gutter, g-rap shit” which roughly translates to a passionate love of producers like Havoc (of Mobb Deep), DJ Premier and D.I.T.C. Absent from their album are synthetic tones; instead, it’s composed almost exclusively of samples.
“Their beats are different, you have all these different elements,” said Alex Freedman, a hip-hop producer for WNUR.
The group does not maintain a consistent tone in its beats, unlike some producers, such as Kanye West and Timbaland. With those artists, the beat is almost instantly recognizable because of a signature tone, such as Timbaland’s giant thump base and famously erratic drums. But on “From Now On,” SMP has taken precautions against such uniformity and taken care not to overwhelm the artists with their beats.
“When we make a beat,” West said. “It’s for the artist.”
After three arduous years of work, “From Now On” has received a widespread release and can be found in stores such as Best Buy. Such an accomplishment might bring SMP into the mainstream, but for now they said they’re more concerned about Friday, when they will spin their own work with their idols.
“You walk out of the studio and hear the final mix of your song with some guy you had never known before and you always admired,” Feltes said. “I can’t even tell you what it felt like to hear our Kool G. Rap song. Like ‘holy shit, that’s Kool G. Rap.’ You know, he’s shouting our names out in the beginning, and we’re like ‘Oh my god, we’ve made an indelible mark.'”4
Medill junior Max Brett is a PLAY writer. He can be reached at [email protected].
