Sure, Snotty Nose Rez Kids are famously rambunctious and mischievous — but they're also empowering, slyly spitting authentic rhymes about Indigenous life over eardrum-rattling trap beats. And yet, in conversation the duo— Haisla First Nation rappers Darren "Young D" Metz and Quinton "Yung Trybez" Nyce— come across entirely differently.
During a Zoom interview while answering the Exclaim! Questionnaire ahead of their new LP RED FUTURE, the dup from Northern BC's Kitamaat Village are soft-spoken, stone-faced serious, and always thoughtful and forthright. This was true as they both took stock of their successful career (which includes Polaris-nominated albums and a flashy major record deal with Sony), the significance of RED FUTURE's theme of Indigenous futurism, and their compelling perspective on Canada.
Yung Trybez in particular waxes poetic while sitting on a sofa in front of a wall adorned with paintings of OutKast, 2Pac and other hip-hop icons — many of whom, oddly enough, are painted with rose petals obscuring their eyes. Adding to that aura: his thick goatee, a nose ring in his septum and studs in each nostril, not to mention his RED FUTURE hoodie. Young D's aesthetic was subtler — what with the neutral colors of both the room he Zoomed in from and his grey T-shirt.
The occasional seriousness of some answers of course didn't stop them from later cracking wise, grinning wryly and giving hot takes on cheesy music biopics.
What's been the greatest moment of your career so far?
Darren "Young D" Metz: The release of RED FUTURE. [Laughs.]
Quinton "Yung Trybez" Nyce: Also, my favorite moment touring was probably selling out the Commodore [in Vancouver]. It's in our home city, and some of the biggest shows that we grew up watching were there.
Young D: There's that one, and the moment where we performed at the JUNOS back in 2022, that same year. That was the first time the both of us had an out-of-body experience while performing. Those are definitely the top two for me.
When it came to the acoustics and stage setup, did the Commodore live up to your expectations?
Young D: Oh for sure. Acoustically it sounded phenomenal. And the show was just jam-packed, sold out, shoulder-to-shoulder. We had fans hyped, laughing, crying. Not necessarily crying from being sad, but just being overwhelmed with joy and emotion. It was definitely one for the books.
Yung Trybez: It was a dream venue for us growing up. And from start to finish, we set the openers up. All our homies opened for us, everybody had a 20-minute slot. So that was dope. We had all our friends there, we had all our family there. And then, as we were getting ready and doing sound check and shit, there was a lineup around the block. That was insane right off the jump. Then once it filled up, we sold out of our merch right away. The energy in that building was electric. I've never felt anything like that before. Everyone was there for us, so that was insane.
It was just such a full-circle moment, too, because five years before, my homies came to town. Shout out Justin and Denton. They came to town and they brought me to a SonReal show there. I was sitting in the balcony section, and SonReal said the same thing — it was a dream venue of his, because one of the first shows he watched was at the Commodore. It's like that for anyone coming up in Vancouver.
Young D, you said RED FUTURE's release is also going to be right up there as well. Can you tell us more about why?
Young D: It's just the best piece of work that we have done to date. It truly does feel like our magnum opus. On top of that, we're doing a show [as part of the album rollout] at the Malkin Bowl. So that's another milestone for us. That's another thing that I love about our journey coming up — whenever we've done a show in Vancouver, we've never done the same venue twice. It's just slowly but surely levelling up each time. And that's probably the most important thing to us.
The album's theme is Indigenous futurism. Playing such a big venue to platform such a positive idea must also be exciting.
Young D: Yes. And you really get a glimpse of past, present and future on this album, when it comes right down to the sound selection, and the feature artist selection. We truly feel like we gathered the best of the best. Whether it's the generation coming up after us, whether it's people that have been among us for the last however many years, and for the big bros that came before us. So that's what we're truly looking forward to when it comes to RED FUTURE. And all of our features have been organic, none forced. They're artists we crossed paths with at some point, and we just built that relationship.
Yung Trybez: Even this shirt right here, it says, "The future is now" [points at the hoodie he is wearing]. That's just the way that we look at life. I don't see a tomorrow without us. I don't see a future without Indigenous people. Especially us being the original people of this land. When it's all said and done, we'll be the last ones standing here. And that's kind of what the concept of RED FUTURE is. It's getting back to our old ways, and being able to survive for tomorrow, and building a better world for tomorrow. Some of that is about not living beyond your means. Because that's what our people have always done. They've always just taken what was needed. What is needed now is creating space for the next generation. That's what RED FUTURE is, essentially.
What's been the worst moment of your career so far?
Young D: I feel like this goes for everybody, but going through the pandemic. Because in 2019, we were touring 80 percent of the year. To go from that to being locked up in the house seven days a week for months and months on end, it was tough. It was tough creatively. It was tough mentally. And for the album that came out of that, Life After, we really had to dig deep, because a lot of our inspiration comes from our traveling experiences. Also, not being able to see each other regularly was definitely challenging.
Yung Trybez: It was like a punch in the stomach, you know? It felt like everything was crashing down on us. We were at the peak of our careers, about to push to the next level. A hump that we were trying to get over for years. And right when we were about to go into RED FUTURE, the pandemic happened. And we were like, "There's no way we can fucking put out RED FUTURE right now, because no one's in the right mind space to take this in the way that we'd want them to."
So then we got into Life After. And when you listened to it, you could tell where we were at mentally. It was a very heavy hitting, dark moment in our lives. But it made us realize what was important in life. So we use everything in every experience that's been thrown our way. We use it as a learning tool to move on to the next stage of our lives.
Who's a Canadian musician that should be more famous?
Young D: There's definitely a lot of people in the indigenous scene who should be up there. You got people like NorthSideBaby. Our label mate Tia Wood, she's just phenomenal. And the craziest thing is, both of them are just getting started. They could take it as far as they want to take it. You got people like Aysanabee. You got the big bro Dreezus. The list could go on. We're at the middle child stage of our careers. We're the big bros for this generation coming up, but we also still got our big bros that we look up to. And all we ever wanted for every artist that we work with is to be happy and successful. Especially if that means they get bigger than us. We have no ego when it comes to that. We just try to do our best to guide them, and be those people that we wish we had around more. That's not to say that we never had help or people reaching out to us to teach us about the game. But it definitely would have been nice to have more.
Yung Trybez: When we started off our careers, we had Dreezus, we had the guys from [BC hip-hop/EDM group] Mob Bounce back when they were a duo. We've had people that we'd reach out to for mentorship. And we tried to be that for the other artists coming up behind us. I guess you could say Tia Wood is a really good friend of ours. I know she's just getting started, but I think she's going to take it to another level. We have guys like NorthSideBaby, who we've had the opportunity to work with and the opportunity to be able to mentor a bit. Because there are ways this industry can take you down. If you put it in the wrong hands, then it might not go so well for you. So we always try to bring artists up the way that we would have liked.
What was the first song you ever wrote?
Young D: The first song we ever wrote together was back when I was like 12! But one of the first songs where we experienced a big shift was right before I moved to Vancouver. Q had come back to Kitemat doing a little visit with the fam; he was already living in Vancouver. And then we just got to my place and recorded two tracks that were truly the beginning of the journey. I still have those files. I don't know if I would repost them or whatnot, but you could definitely hear the growth from then to now, because that was during a time when we were just starting to really, truly learn about ourselves. To understand who we are and where we come from. That's another beautiful thing, too, man. Like, if I were to bring back those mixtape days all the way up and into RED FUTURE, the growth of us being artists — and, more importantly, individuals — is one of the craziest arcs I've ever seen.
Yung Trybez: "Dead Chiefs" is an early song of ours that sticks out so vividly for me. It set up what SNRK was to become and the way that we create music. Me and D fed off each other in a way that we never had musically before. That song has true bars in it, and it's super long. I think we have two verses each that are way over 16 bars. It's the most memorable early moment of writing music together that represents us at our core.
What was your most memorable day job?
Yung Trybez: I was a heavy duty mechanic. Everybody knew me on site as the guy that wanted to become a rapper, and everyone supported me as such. People would be like, "Yo, Q, can you spit a freestyle for us?" or whatever on lunch breaks. So, yeah, everyone kind of knew what I was getting into, and they still follow my career to this day. And that was, like, eight years ago, so that's pretty crazy.
Young D: I don't know if it's memorable, but my last job was working front desk on this cruise ship. It was parked, so it's pretty much like a hotel. I hated every second of it. It hurt my ego as a rapper a little bit. I was like, "Man, how am I supposed to be the best rapper in the Northwest when I'm working a job like this?" Nothing against it. It just wasn't for me. I only worked it for, like, nine months, but it was during that job where I decided, "I can't see myself doing this. If I want to work, it's going to be music." So once I got laid off, I moved to Vancouver, and I started my audio engineering program. And the rest is history.
Do you still use things from that course to this day?
Young D: Oh, for sure. Every time we go in the studio.
Yung Trybez: We approach life like that. I went to school for business administration. And early SNRK was me dealing with all the bookings, marketing ourselves, creating a little business plan for us. And he was our engineer. Things like that kind of worked for us to be successful in the industry.
What do you think of when you think of Canada?
Yung Trybez: For me, the state of Canada cannot be trusted. As Indigenous people, we have a trust issue with the government because of obvious reasons. I don't need to dive into it. We were mistreated from the time of contact up until now. And for us, this is our home. This is not Canada. This is our territories. These are our lands. This is where we're from, and this is who we are. We can't talk about land without identity, and we can't talk about identity without land. We are the land. So we have to separate ourselves from what Canada has built here.
But we're forced to adapt in the society we are a part of, which forced itself upon us. And we have learned to thrive. It's a loaded question, because I could go on. When it comes to Canada, it's a lot of relearning about ourselves and taking what is put in front of us with a grain of salt. Taking what we can and getting rid of the rest. The way that I look at Canada is the way that I look at Truth and Reconciliation: things are being said, but not a lot is being done. So it's on us to continue to decolonize and re-Indigenize and make ourselves better.
What's the greatest song of all time?
Yung Trybez: I think "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen. I grew up on Queen. My dad's a huge fan. He always played it when we went on fishing trips. And in the house. So, yeah, I would say "Bohemian Rhapsody" is just such a beast of a song.
We also play a section of "Bohemian Rhapsody" in our sets, and the crowd goes nuts. Just a section of it, and then it goes to another song. Because everything to do with our sets is very thought out and it just flows. It gets people hype, gets people singing, gets us singing, and then we just go into a new song.
So what did you guys think of the controversial Queen biopic?
Yung Trybez: I loved it. I loved it.
Young D: I liked it.
Yung Trybez: I'm not a huge critic when it comes to those kind of movies. I even liked the Elvis movie. But a lot of my homies hated it. I don't know, I guess I have a soft spot for those movies.
Young D: I like how they captured the Wembley stadium concert in Bohemian Rhapsody. Especially how they depicted the crowd, and the call and response. Biopics can be hit or miss. But at the end of the day, I'll still watch.
Have you guys ever fantasized about your own biopic?
Yung Trybez: Well, there is a show coming out called Snotty Nose Rez Kids.
Young D: We co-wrote it. We started sitting down with the co-writers in June of last year.
Yung Trybez: We've always wanted to get into writing for film and TV. And for us to be able to have our first experience writing about ourselves and our own lived experience has just been next level. We're not playing ourselves as main characters, but we're gonna have a lot of cameos and stuff like that. So that part's exciting. But we don't really have the time right now to do much more, or indulge fully into acting. We have a lot on our plate. Our rap careers are most important.