Hip-hop and professional wrestling go hand and hand according to Fess Rice, better known around Durham as the rapper Lord Fess.
“Music and wrestling are having a crazy, amazing marriage right now,” he says. “Lil Yachty was on Wrestlemania, Travis Scott was on the last pay-per-view, Cardi B hosted the one before that.”
It makes sense then, given his history, that it was time for Fess to bring his music into the ring. In his new video for “I Mean,” he does just that. Teaming up with the Raleigh-based organization Dominant Championship Wrestling, the clip features Fess center stage surrounded by flashes of chaos and taking hits as he raps through the lyrics of the track.
“Afterwards the pro wrestlers were like ‘Hey man, you took some solid bumps back there,’ and I was like alright, bet,” he said. “Four days later I was still sore as hell.”
This isn’t the first time that the rapper has stepped into the wrestling ring. Earlier in his life, Lord Fess spent ten months training to do it professionally.
After dropping out of Durham School of the Arts, Fess spent some time at Durham Technical Community College working towards earning a GED. During this time he also had ambitions of becoming a professional athlete and had joined the farm team system of a local arena football organization.
“I was fast. I could kinda catch, but I had some of my best plays on defense,” he said. “I joined a team as a wide receiver at that time.”
During that tenure, Fess also started thinking about wrestling professionally, and after figuring out the next steps for that journey, he started making moves. His goal was to get noticed by a local wrestling school that would bring him in; an experience he compared to trying to get your music heard as an ambitious up-and-coming artist.
“I did the record label thing, only for professional wrestling,” he said. “Like the way you wait outside somebody’s crib with your mixtape and are like ‘Bro! Listen to these beats!’ I did that for wrestling. I was like ‘I’m big! I can do this!'”
Fess eventually joined GOUGE Wrestling, a Raleigh-based organization founded by Greg Mosorjak aka Count Grog in 2006. GOUGE is an acronym that stands for Gimmicks Only Underground Grappling Entertainment. Under the tutelage of the wrestler known as Trailer Park Heat, Fess spent close to a year training with the organization until he decided to drop out due to the toll it was taking on his body.
“I got tired of getting my ass kicked,” he said. “I was still doing the semi-pro football thing at the time too, but that’s padded. Pro wrestling is not padded. It’s not fake.”
“I Mean” comes from Fess’ latest release, “North State Blues.” It’s his first musical project since 2019 and one that he says came together after receiving some inspiring words and encouragement from his friend and fellow local rapper Jooselord.
“It’s some pent‑up anger and sadness mixed with a confrontation with accountability that I needed to get off my chest,” he said of the project. “Making ‘North State Blues’ felt like therapy to me. Since I released the project I’ve felt more joyful and more locked in than I ever have in my life. That’s what therapy does, and this feels even better than that.”
Fess says he hopes that the people who listen to “North State Blues” are left feeling inspired.
“If you ain’t been creating, I just hope it inspires you to make something that brings you joy,” he said. “I don’t believe in happiness because happiness is fleeting. Find joy because joy is everlasting.”
