‘God save the gifted. These are the confessions of the young and destined’ from Lordkez’s debut album, TESTAMENT

Kezia Meyers AKA Lordkez might be a generational artist. That is, she could come to define a moment in South Africa’s sonic history. In the past, Lordkez has been described ‘agnostically genreless’ – a phrase alluding to her ability to traverse RnB, rap, soul, electro and so on. With one of the strongest artistic expressions I’ve seen in some time (ie. her visual signatures are as clear as her musical abilities) Lordkez’s debut album, TESTAMENT, is precisely this; a testimony to her proficiency across multiple sonic articulations, and a kind of contemporary gospel that lays down scripture for how Lordkez envisions herself to be as an artist. The album is a 12-track, religious iconographic-infused invitation for listeners into a wild garden of Lordkez’s inner, spiritual and sonic sanctum. We have no choice but to simply, irrevocably, stan.

Originally from Kimberley, Kez describes her formative years, the genesis of her pathway, saying “I’ve always had an ear for music. I discovered it through the organ, actually – my mom plays the organ in church and she taught me how to play it. So, I’d play the organ during church services, my grandfather was the priest and I’d sing a bit in the choir here and there. We even had an organ at home and I can remember making cute, little songs.” With a family for whom music was an altar of expression, she describes her influences,“my mum played a lot of Whitney Houston, India Arie, Boyz II Men and a lot of old school RnB. My dad would play gangsta rap. Nas, Tupac – the legends. I grew up with this strong fusion between those genres and then the practice of music as a form of worship. I never really had hopes and dreams of being a famous artist, but I can see now that artistic performance has been a calling all my life.”

Lordkez conveys the kind of knowing that she was always destined for this. In our conversation, the beginning descriptions of her life feature subtle time-stamps of music as always present; as being innate to who Kez is. It took moving to the UAE, though, and out of her comfort zone for it to first be realised beyond just the sonic play that she had growing up immersing herself in (those sweet songs on the organ, for example). Lordkez says, “I moved abroad to Abu Dhabi and made a group of friends who made music. They really encouraged me to make a song and I hadn’t even considered it before – I was like, ‘yeah, why not??’. That first deep house track put everything in motion, even more so when I started performing live at poetry evenings.”

When Kez returned to South Africa, she headed to Cape Town to study sound engineering at SAE. A number of symphonic events led her to meet Vaugn Thiel and Fred Kayembe of Stay Low and Stein Entertainment – a record label and management company that has carved out one of the most important positions in South Africa’s independent music scene. On this chance ‘scouting’, Kez reminisces, “Vaugn and Fred, my now management, ‘discovered’ me off of SoundCloud. I came to Joburg and I wanted to shoot a cover for an album and make a video. I had this hilarious conversation with Vaughn where I was like, ‘I want to drop an album and I plan on dropping it in two weeks’ to which he said, ‘okay, so where’s the music?’ I didn’t have any. We ended up making my first EP, Revenge Season, in about nine studio sessions. It was wild.”

This year, Lordkez released her debut album. It took some years from that initial EP to this point – but it had to take some time. The album, TESTAMENT, required a kind of initiation that only the best kind of art can be born from. As Kez explains, “it took a year to put together the Testament. I had taken a step back to focus on myself as a person – my mental health and so on. During that time, I was writing poems and spilling out what I was feeling. The first track that was born from that was ‘Confessions’, in my mom’s new place in Cape Town, sleeping on a blow up mattress. I was confronted with thinking I had to give up music in order to bend to the pressures of society. My first inclination was to write and in that moment, it was decided – I wasn’t going to quit. That process, which ultimately led to the Testament, built the confidence in me that I had needed. It also brought me my sonic style.” Produced mostly by Mars Baby, another member of the Stay Low family, Lordkez realised the importance of her team during this process and being surrounded by the right people. Along with family and the spectrum of the human experience, she describes the profundity of TESTAMENT’S birthing process, that it took returning to “my relationship with God, my relationship with my family. Grief, heartbreak, losing friends, finding love – feeling betrayed. Testament is a space that I channelled my experiences of all the human emotions I had gone through. The album, while full of these things, is ultimately about self-discovery and the pursuit of finding comfort, particularly around my beliefs.” 

No work is ever created in a silo, as Lordkez explains that “I learned so much through putting together this album, especially from those around me who helped me do it. It’s definitely a team effort in every way. I have so much love and respect for my team because they helped me reach that level of comfortability within vulnerability, confidence without arrogance.”

Undoubtedly clear for Lordkez during this metamorphosis, has been the development of her iconographic style; religious symbolism from track titles to the album cover, this body of work showcases a unified vision, held together by sacred threads. On using religious symbolism, Lorskez explains that “my spirituality is a part of me. I like to utilise my gift for my music as an offering, as a way to express gratitude for having been given this gift in this life. I really wanted my debut album to be a testament to the person that I am. It has a lot of religious references, particularly Christian, because of my traditional Anglican upbringing. I paid homage to that as my testament – that was my beginning.” Regarding the deeply moving album cover, evocative of the sainthood tradition of Catholicism, Lordkez describes how “the cover art is inspired by Our Lady of Sorrows. The pain, the expression – her face in the statue in Spain, conveys every emotion. My dad is Catholic so I was brought up knowing the saints. I felt like I connected with Our Lady, her stoic pose of emotion is still so profound for me.”

Lordkez Compilation Visuals

I ask Kez whether the infusion of the symbolism and the contents of this project borough her towards a spiritual awakening – to which she says, “Absolutely. I had a time where I was exploring all different religions. I was in love with Hinduism, specifically Kālī Ma and Shakti. I resonated with those energies so deeply. Islam too is so sacred, especially the dedication towards prayer and purification. I dipped into astrology, tarot and other modalities. I believe that collectively, all of the gods are one God. I know that can sound crazy to some people, but I came back home to God through learning about different gods; I needed to come back to myself and to my roots, and understanding the different aspects of God brought me back to my genesis, my beginning.” 

The brilliance of TESTAMENT to me is the reinterpretation of religion through a spiritual lens; the two have become separated from each other in many ways, with our generations facing great loss in the faith of institutions that previously held the position of ‘truth-keepers’. This is not without its risk though, using the vision of Our Lady of Sorrows could be seen as a heretical act – as Lordkez says “I’m very aware that the way I have used the references that I have could be perceived by others as offensive. I’ve come to realise that I can’t align everyone to the vibrational wavelength that I’m expressing with TESTAMENT. I know the intention is neither blasphemous nor mockery. It’s something that I feel I was divinely guided to do; to show God, to honour God through art.” Earlier, I said that Lordkez might be a generational artist. Her intuitive explanations affirmed this to me; this is an artist invested in the detail and depth that it takes to build a dreamscape to share their message. Kez explains that “I want TESTAMENT to be comforting to listeners. I know that when I went through some deep experiences, I would have loved 12 tracks to just hold me. I hope the album can do that for someone.”

Holy Matrimony – Single Artwork

One of my favourite tracks from the album is ‘Enthralled’ made with Sudanese-American rapper, Bas. It is a feat of Lordkez’s tender, High Priestess (from the tarot Major Arcana) expression as an artist. The song is a sign of things to come, to which Kez reflects “that was such a beautiful experience. Bas is a friend of STAY LOW, he was in Joburg for a couple of days. We were in the studio and he was playing some tracks, he played ‘Enthralled’ and I was like, ‘woah, what is this?’. He said I could have the track, which was crazy. That song is so unique. Bas being so open to receiving me on the song is something I have deep gratitude for, he really didn’t have to do that. In the music industry, it’s so competitive. As an established artist, you don’t have to do that kind of thing for another artist. He did, though and the experience gave me a real kind of hope for being in this space.”

Lordkez is a holy vision and has been handed the sword of sonic doctrines, inviting her listeners into a world that is contained, safe, explorative and magical. I leave our conversation fully in awe of where she will go as an artist and spiritual being. As to what you can expect, Lordkez says that “I am going to experiment a lot more going forward. Testament has established my sound, so it’s a good reference for what you can expect from me – but it won’t always be. A lot more live shows, too. I’m performing at Rocking The Daisies on the mainstage. The same stage that Stormzy will be performing on. How crazy is that?”

Watch ‘Enthralled’ music video feat. Bas HERE
Watch ‘Eternity’ music video feat. Jelani Blackman HERE

Listen and purchase TESTAMENT HERE

Written by: Holly Beaton

I have always found the term ‘DIY’ interesting when it relates to artists. Surely, all art is inherently DIY? I supposed in a world over-saturated by the commercial glitz and glamour, this is not actually so. Berlin-based Lover Buffet, originally from Greece and South Africa, exemplifies how the allure of do-it-yourself in music making lies in the unparalleled freedom that it offers. The punk attitude of DIY – of teaching oneself the skills necessary – has enabled a mode of creation for Lover Buffet that has empowered them to experiment fearlessly, delivering a sonic and visual world that is an unfiltered reflection of their innermost landscape. This brazenness and boldness is an initiation of courage; so when Lover Buffet tells me that they’ve only really been making music since 2020, I am astounded. Lover Buffet, said bold-and-brazen project, is the outcome of their journey of reckoning with their experience, healing (non-healing, too) and vulnerability. 

“I started to hack Ableton in late 2018. I was a complete beginner – I had looked at the program and thought it was completely impossible to even attempt. In 2019, I started stitching samples together, so I let myself just experiment. Finally, in 2020, I learned how to structure a song and that changed everything. I had always been obsessed with music, I’m pretty sure that I have a bit of tinnitus from the constant sounds in my ears!” Lover Buffet tells me in our conversation, adding that “my mom had this Sony Ericsson, do you remember you could make your own ringtones? I remember being 9 and that really stuck with me, the idea of creating sounds.” Music was a natural outcome of a lifelong artistic actualisation, for which the name ‘Lover Buffet’ (a title that reminds me of a juicy feast for the senses) acts as a container in which their sonic development could collide with their already-established visual practices, “the name ‘Lover Buffet’ came quite randomly. I work better with structure, so once I had an idea of what I wanted to do – it became easier to conceive of creating this project into which I could pour myself. Previously, I had been a photographer – running around with a camera since about the age of 10. Music was something I really wanted to do and had been a goal for a long time.”

Disconnection

Lover Buffet is a fusion of retro-pop, synth waveforms punctuated by journal-style lyricism; as they explain, their process hinges on an ever-evolving confrontation with emotions, “the project is a blend of visuals and sound; the two inform each other. I feel like my music is quite melodramatic. It’s a little bit camp and there is some sort of catharsis that I find in exaggeration. When it comes to visuals, they need to hold the same kind of melodrama because I work with an emotion and the visuals naturally spring from whatever feeling I am working with.” I note Lover Buffet’s commitment to the colour red; a truly unsung, primal feature of life itself, to which they respond, “thank you! Right? Red has suffered a lot of myths. I think red is psychologically difficult for us sometimes – it incites some sort of passion, and we see that with a lot of corporate brands. I am an aesthetically driven person, so I have two extremes; either very rich and pleasing, or completely empty and minimal.” 

In Lover Buffet’s latest single ‘Emotionally Indiscreet’, they sing ‘one of my worst fears is being emotionally indiscreet’. This confessional is a culmination of Lover Buffet’s last few years pouring their emotional waters into the chalice of sound. Asking them to explain the contents of the song, they say “I was writing very seriously in my journal at the beginning of 2020 about how I recognised that I was actually holding myself back in my life. I have this line that I always think about which is, ‘are you ready for the crave you change?’. I wanted to feel connection, to love, to be loved and I had to look at what was really stopping me. There are many reasons like trauma, nervous system dysregulation, but the first step to acknowledging it was to admit that I was part of my own resistance to being more open or vulnerable. So that song is really about expressing that the possibility of being hurt, rather than not feeling anything at all, is what I’m committed to.” The music video for ‘Emotionally Indiscreet’ created in collaboration with Andrea Rojas, is Lover Buffet’s self-described melodramatic visual accompaniment.

Emotionally Indiscreet

This kind of tenderness reverberates throughout the Lover Buffet dreamscape – often, vulnerability is a subtextual feature of an artist’s practice. For Lover Buffet, it is front and centre to their thematic explorations, “in a kind of sadistic way, the times I have been in pain – I have also felt the most alive. The waves of grief are some of the most powerful parts of the human experience. I have found being in pain, or being hurt, has offered me a lot of clarity and growth that I wouldn’t have otherwise experienced. I definitely had this toxic healing era, where I was just chasing total peace – but that’s not the full spectrum of emotion or experience.”

I ask them whether making music has made the process of vulnerability somewhat easier to contend with, to which they say “music has allowed me to express things that I haven’t been able to before. I definitely find singing is sometimes a safer way of saying things that I really want to say, especially when it’s paired with music – something gets released. It’s interesting, I find my songs are like these time capsules that instantly transport me back to the time in which I wrote that song. Sometimes I wonder, is this healthy? But ultimately, music has proven to be my deepest catharsis and I am so, so grateful to be able to explore in that way.” 

‘Just Fantasy’ is Lover Buffet’s answer to the album format. Curated from a growing body of work made fervently with their freshly tuned skills, the album features 7 tracks that are equally cohesive, as they are strong on their own. Lover Buffet says, “when I decided that I wanted to put out an album, I was lucky to be able to pick and choose the tracks that already existed. It was about putting together a collage of pieces that work together. The album title was a response to a situation-ship that I found myself in; you know, when you’re with someone but it’s more of a mirage, and they are more of a projection in your mind than who they actually are. They’re just fantasy, you know? I think you can get sad from building stories in your mind and not looking at facts.”

‘true love technically’ & ‘hand underwater’ music video stills

Lover Buffet’s move to Berlin follows a rite of passage that I have seen a few people take. It seems the city’s various subcultures – such as the DIY Neukölln scene that they have come up in – coax more parts of people to emerge than ever previously revealed. I think of the artistic communities in Berlin as flowers emerging from the concrete in an oppressive, urban landscape; the city itself has reckoned with a less-than idealistic history. On this poetic juxtaposition, Lover Buffet says “everyone is very friendly and down to earth in Berlin. They’re also all very excited for each other, which is so refreshing. There’s a lot of support and I’ve experienced good vibes, a real alignment. I’ve never been to a place where everyone is accepted because everyone is just unapologetically fuckin’ weird. At the end of the day, we as humans just want to be accepted. Berlin is not a utopia by any means, but it has a quality to it held together by a lot of communities that are dedicated to acceptance and freedom.” Although now self-producing independently from a label, Lover Buffet credits some of their artistic incarnation since moving to Berlin, to “my label at the time of “Emotionally Indiscreet” and Just Fantasy’s release, INTRNT EXPLRR, was pivotal in welcoming and holding me steadily in the Berlin DIY music scene. A dear friend now, he supported my vision warmly and was so patient with my perfectionism and every change.”

Lover Buffet is a tender being with a penchant for illumination; in our conversation, I found a kind of authenticity and earnestness that is a rare, precious gem. Ahead for them? A second album is in the pipeline – “with lots of music videos, too!” and their continued goal of philosophical outpouring through their practices. They’re currently in Greece with their family; and they tell me that their mum has often been the one filming some visuals when they’re in Athens. In this Athenian, liminal space; Lover Buffet is a rounding off the summer season. I can’t wait to see what happens next. 

Stream and watch Lover Buffet HERE 

Follow Lover Buffet:
Website
Instagram 
Music Video “Emotionally Indiscreet”
Bandcamp 
Andrea Rojas (co-creator of ‘Emotionally Indiscreet video)

Cover image by @__arojas__

Written by: Holly Beaton