Lord Fess: Rebellion EP release
Wednesday, Nov. 20, 9 p.m., free–$5
The Pinhook, Durham
The Durham rapper, producer, and songwriter Lord Fess has been building as a recording and touring artist over the last few years, but they’ve been rough, too: He broke his leg, lost family members to cancer, and reckoned with depression and anxiety.
That kind of struggle takes a toll on the people around you, perhaps especially your significant other. In the video for “Stress,” which we’re premiering today, Lord Fess wrestles with how those hard times affected his relationship and his partner, with a laidback urgency in the singsong cadence he threads between SoundWavve’s wistful synths and spitting 808s. It’s a dark night of the soul with a strangely soothing, resilient energy.
Set in Durham, the video is a polished production, directed and edited by Patrick Lincoln of Raleigh’s Torch House Media. The song comes from Rebellion, the EP that Fess will drop on Friday, November 22—but the release show is at The Pinhook tonight (with Kelly KALE, The Lost Generation, and 3Fourteen).
Rebellion, he told the INDY, is the result of a couple of years under the tutelage of Dreamville-associated recording engineer Juro “Mez” Davis; the EP features Fess’s own production alongside work from people he met along the way, including Soundwavve, Nick Sanborn, Chaka Harley, and JD Wilson.
bhowe@indyweek.com
