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DJ Booth: Let’s talk about “Get Buck” real quick. You wrangled up Akon, Luda, Diddy, and Lil’ Jon. Describe the process that you go through to formulate a star-studded collaboration…

DJ Felli Fel: The process was individually letting these guys hear the record. I did the record one night when I got out of a club; you never know when inspiration is gonna strike, [so I] got down in front of my equipment, and that record just came out. I was lookin’ through sounds on the keyboard, and I liked that synth-y sound. I’d never really used it – maybe in a couple records here and there, but I never used it as the main, lead sound in a record. I sat down, started playing with some melodies, and did the whole beat in maybe like thirty minutes. I think some of the best things happen spontaneous, and that that was definitely an example of that. After I finished the record I saw Akon; I knew that if he got on that track it was gonna be a smash. So sure as hell, about an hour later, he wrote the hook, got in the booth, knocked it out. I think we were in the studio a total of maybe three hours. Diddy heard it, loved it, and I said, “Hey, just give me a verse, man.” And he ended up doin’ three verses. I ended up using two of the three verses. So then I had Akon and Diddy on it. I called Luda, told him I had a crazy record, and he said, “Send it to me.” I sent it to him, couple days later he called me and was like, “Man, you did this beat?” and I said, “Yeah!” And he said, “Man, this sh*t is crazy!” He laced it and I had it within a week. So at that point it was Akon, Diddy, and Luda, and I was in the studio finishin’ it. I wanted to do something different to it, and I said, “Let’s slow it down and see what it sounds like if I slow it down.” I remembered an old record called, “French Kiss,” back in the day, a house record. The record slowed down in the middle of a song and a girl was havin’ an orgasm, and I always loved the fact that that record slowed down. I did it just to see what it would sound like. I got my management in the studio with me, we’re mixin’ this record, and they’re like, “’Dude, this record is done! What are you doing? You’re tryin’ to overdo it.” I was like, “I wanna try this sh*t.” When I slowed it down, everybody in the studio stood up and they were like, “Oh, sh*t!” I was at a studio in Hollywood and I called Lil’ Jon, he was the first person that came to my mind. Everyone was like, “Aw, Lil John’ll kill this sh*t!” Drove up the hill to his house, went in there, and about five hours after we partied our asses off, he finally knocked it out and did his part and that was a wrap on “Get Buck.”

DJ Booth: Well, it seems as though your personal relationships with all these artists really helped you out a lot. A lot of the time I think the public hears a collaboration track like this, and they automatically assume, “These artists are for hire,” but it’s much different in your case. When you have multiple A-list artists all on one song, do you find that egos tend to become bruised easily, let’s say if someone gets two verses instead of one, or someone gets the first verse?

DJ Felli Fel: I’m sure it’s possible with artists of this caliber to get “butthurt,” but in this case everybody was one hundred percent feelin’ the record and down to do it. When it was done I let everybody hear it to approve it. Diddy, I will say, was the one artist on the record that was very picky, but that’s why he’s Diddy. He was very adamant about havin’ his vocals mixed the right way. We ended up sendin’ the song to his studio in New York, Daddy’s House, and they mixed his vocals there. If somebody didn’t say something, I would’ve been disappointed, because that would’ve told me that they were just like, “’Yeah, whatever, just put it out there.” I think Luda wanted some of his vocals turned down a little bit on the Tiger Woods part – that was pretty much it, man.