Durham rapper Otis Ghost stopped by Live & Local this week, still celebrating the release of last year’s EP “I Miss You. Behave, And I’ll Be Back Soon.”
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“That EP actually started in COVID,” Otis says of “I Miss You,” which was his first release in several years. “I happened to live next door to two producers (and) we all started hanging out – they were more into EDM music, but they had equipment I was familiar with, and so we just joined forces and started making all these beats.”
Otis says they made about 20 tracks before ultimately narrowing the list down to five. The resulting EP, pound for pound, was one of the best releases the Triangle has seen in several years – led by opening track “The Good Die Young,” which Chapelboro recognized as one of the five best local songs of 2025.
“It was very well received, a lot of people were really excited about it,” he says. “I remember a car stopping when I was working security at a bar – I didn’t know the guy, the car stopped and he was like, ‘album’s crazy.’ And then he just kept driving.”
As for that long title? “That comes from a breakup, actually,” Otis says. “It was about two days after the breakup, I was chain smoking…and I looked over and saw a note that that person had (once) left me before they went on vacation, on top of my fridge. And I started laughing. It snapped me out of it immediately.”
The tracks on “I Miss You” are universally tight, with top-level production and effortlessly smooth lyrics that dive headfirst into challenging subjects both personal and societal. It’s straight-down-the-line hip hop, but Otis draws his songwriting inspiration from a wide range of musical sources.
“(A friend suggested) when you’re getting ready to write, stop listening to hip hop,” he says of his writing process. “Go listen to Coltrane, go listen to Miles. Go listen to Abba. It don’t matter. Just don’t listen to hip hop – make sure what you’re putting out is you, and not your version of this (other) song you heard.”
That’s an easy ask for Otis Ghost, who’s always been surrounded by a wide variety of music: he grew up in the 80s, listening to his sister’s Madonna and Blondie records and his brother’s Run-DMC and LL Cool J records at the same time. “My mom always says, ‘you learned Puff the Magic Dragon and Eazy-E in the same year,'” he laughs.
“(So) I’ve been listening to the Avett Brothers,” he adds. “On the last EP, I was able to write extremely personal songs much easier, because I was writing it almost as one of them: what would they do in this situation? Not ‘what would they say,’ or ‘what would they write,’ but what would they do?”
There’s a lot more to come from Otis Ghost in the near future: he says he’s currently working on two projects both due out by the end of 2026, plus a new clothing line for good measure. And while he’s lived all over the country, he’s excited to be rooted now in the Triangle.
“I’m from a city called Aurora, about 20 minutes west of Chicago…but (Durham) just ended up being a good fit,” he says. “I’ve lived in a lot of places – Chicago, New York, Jacksonville, Kansas City, St. Louis – (but) Durham’s been real good to me, man.”
Otis Ghost stopped by Live & Local this week to discuss “I Miss You. Behave, And I’ll Be Back Soon” and play three tracks: “Running Around,” “Ghost of Gotti,” and “Street Thief.” Listen:
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