James Fedd, a.k.a. Fedd the God, is a rising Pittsburgh-based rap star who on Labor Day weekend competed in his first demolition derby at a town fair in Mercer County.
Fedd, an ebullient 30-year-old who’s part of Wiz Khalifa’s Taylor Gang, is known for tracks like “BBN,” “Love Hate,” and “Catalina Wine Mixer.” His demo-derby debut at the Great Stoneboro Fair wasn’t as random as it might appear.
He dove into derby via Jason Sauer, who — if he’s not Pittsburgh’s sole artist who’s also a derby driver and team leader — is surely the only one who’s been doing it almost since he was old enough to get behind the wheel.
Fedd wasn’t hard to convince. “I’m an adrenaline junkie, so I love doing [expletive] for the thrill of it,” he said in the hours before his first race. “Just get over your fear, for real, just get over anything. Anything I’m scared of I’m gonna do, just so I can be like, ‘I’m not scared of [expletive] no more.”
Fedd and Sauer were connected by DS Kinsel of Garfield-based arts group BOOM Concepts; Sauer and Kinsel have been pals since Sauer’s Most Wanted Fine Art Gallery was a staple on the Penn Avenue arts corridor, a block from BOOM.
Sauer, 50, has been a derby driver for more than three decades. He grew up partly in Pittsburgh and partly in Stoneboro, a small town in Mercer known for its derbies. His art, including oversized scrap-metal sculptures, also revolves around a derby aesthetic, even incorporating battered pieces of old derby cars.
Sauer’s goal is to spread the joy that arises only when a bunch of cars enter a confined space and smash into each other until only one remains. In 2019, he created the Most Wanted Fine Art stock class, a sort of entry-level derby category that lets drivers use street cars, rather than the souped-up and heavily reinforced vehicles run by serious derby drivers. (Drivers compete in their own classes; Sauer describes the MWFA heats as “comic relief,” though the hits are still pretty hard and the possibility of injury is real.)
As the Most Wanted class grew in popularity around the region and even beyond, Sauer also sought to diversify the pool of drivers and other team members. Simply put, derby is a sport identified with the rural and small-town white working class, but Sauer thought others might enjoy the fun.
His recruits have included Tyriq McClelland, a Garfield native who’s driven in about a dozen derbies over the past three years. “It’s physical. It’s a thinking game more than you would think,” said McClelland, 32, who also helps out in the team’s Garfield garage.
Other guest drivers have included FRZY, a Pittsburgh-based rapper prominent enough to have had his own night performing with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra last year.
And now Fedd, too, was getting behind the wheel.
While Fedd has attended rural fairs before, spending the day at Stoneboro was a new experience for him. His was one of the very few Black faces in the crowd of thousands who’d come to the fairgrounds for the carnival rides, skill games, tractor pulls, a tiger act and more.
“I felt a lot of [expletives] was like, what the [expletive] is he doing here?” Fedd said in a followup interview several weeks after the meet. But, he added, “I can adapt to any type of joint.”
Hear how the rest of his day went in the accompanying audio story.
