The Allston house party scene can be full of zombies. And if you’ve ever wondered what would happen if a dead guy rolled up, in some straight-up Weekend At Bernie’s-type shit, Esh & Arc have the answer: No one would even notice.
That’s the look of “Live it Up (‘Til the Buzz Dies Down)”, the first clip off the Boston duo’s debut LP, Death Doesn’t Want You, which drops January 22 via AR Classic Records.
Esh & Arc are no strangers to the Boston scene: Esh the Monolith is one of the region’s best MCs, named to XXL Magazine’s 15 Boston Rappers You Should Know, while producer the Arcitype made waves recently for his work in Moe Pope project STL GLD. On “Live it Up (‘Til the Buzz Dies Down),” they team with Bad Rabbits frontman Dua Boakye, and the rest of the LP features guests like Radclyffe Hall’s Dhy Berry, Boogie Boy Metal Mouth, Slaine and Reks, the dudes in Tigerman WOAH, and others.
“The album is about courting death through self-destructive behavior, and one of its main themes is partying yourself into the grave,” Esh tells Vanyaland. “This song is one of a handful of dark party jams on the record, so we wanted some sort of lighthearted, but actually pretty fucked up, visual representation of that concept. So, I came up with the idea of two nondescript gentleman dragging my fresh corpse through a typical Allston house party, Weekend-at-Bernie’s-style. The nondescript gentlemen are never acknowledged, and none of the party-goers realize that I’m dead.”
Esh adds: “What starts as a typical party gets progressively weirder, with different vices being represented in a number of different rooms of the house. It has a wacky Dante’s Inferno-vibe and I’m pretty sure it is the first rap video with a pegging scene in it, haha.”
The video was directed by Xander Hayes, and shot in collaboration with Downlow Productions. The vibe may or may not be recreated at the record release party, which goes down January 22 at the Middle East in Cambridge, and features the aforementioned Tigerman WHOA, Moe Pope, Boogie Boy Metal Mouth, and a few other surprises.
Feel the Bern.