Taylor Gang rapper Fedd the God says ‘Yea Yup’ with Wiz Khalifa
There was no song, no concept when Fedd the God went into ID Labs studio to cut a track with Wiz Khalifa. “He just wanted to see what I had, my skill set,” Fedd said, “so he put on a beat and he went, ‘Start a song, start a song up,’ and I just started freestylin’.”
Freestylin’ with a superstar has to be a little nerve-wracking, right?
“Nah, it was like playing one-on-one basketball versus one of your favorite players. It was a moment you’re ready for.”
They emerged from the vaunted Pittsburgh studio with “Yea Yup,” a banger and fourth single from Fedd the God’s EP, “Speed Racer.”
Fedd the God is 26-year-old James Fedd Jr., one of the latest additions to Khalifa’s Taylor Gang roster and one who brings a hard edge from the streets.
“I grew up in two tough neighborhoods on the North Side,” Fedd said. “I grew up in Manchester and Northview Heights, so growing up in the neighborhood and staying in yourself was very tough.”
Although he first started messing with hip-hop when he was 10 or 11 years old, being a rapper wasn’t his dream.
“I never aspired to be an artist,” he said. “Growing up, it wasn’t my thing. I loved music, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t grow up saying, ‘I’m gonna be a rapper. This is what I’m going to do with my life.’ I wanted to be a doctor, but I got into a little trouble, so I couldn’t do that. My friends were rapping and I started dibbling and dabbling in it, and it kind of found me, for real. So I stuck with it.”
It found him in part because of the words of a friend, rapper Trillzee, who was murdered.
“He was a big influence, because at the point when he was rapping, I wasn’t rapping. He used to be on me, like ‘Bro, you need to rap. You have talent. You know how to move people; you’re a people person. You’re from the street, but you don’t have to be that.’ ”
He became a student of hip-hop, he says, studying the styles and cadences of Master P, Lil Wayne, Young Jeezy, Gucci Mane, Andre 3000, Khalifa and Mac Miller. He took his rap name by combining
his last name with a nod to a Dragon Ball Super Saiyan transformation. In his early days, he worked with a collective called NWS (N----- Wit Swagg).
He caught the attention of the Taylor Gang in one of the worst possible ways, getting into a fight on the South Side with “Jr.,” a friend of Taylor Gang manager Will Dzombak.
“Will ended up breaking up the fight and we exchanged numbers right there,” Fedd said. “He let me know who he was. We didn’t talk much there, but we rubbed shoulders, and then I dropped a song in February 2018 called ‘Bobby Boucher’ and it was making its way around Pittsburgh that year, and then around September 2018
is when Will contacted me and put me into a studio.”
His first encounter with Wiz was the following July in New York City at a postshow party.
“It was super dope,” Fedd said, “because you see someone come off doing a 45minute show and then he changed his stuff and then he came and was our bartender. So it was super dope to see that ’cause I like hospitality, for real. I like just being a host to my guest and things. So just to see him not even complain about doing the show, getting off and just straight having fun right after that, it showed me that people do have fun doing music. I love to move people and I see the same thing in him, so it was an
admirable situation.”
In better times, Fedd would be planning a summer tour with the Taylor Gang, but he’s going to have to promote “Speed Racer” without that. So far, so good, as the singles have more than 500,000 streams across various platforms.
He says of his style, “It’s very fastpaced, it’s very action-packed. Growing up, you had to bounce around a lot. You had to bounce around to keep yourself busy: playing football, playing sports, after-school programs, staying in camp, just so I didn’t get caught up in the other things going on. I have a lot of friends that are dead, a lot of friends in jail and I’m still out here.”