But more importantly, I felt like I was a part of something again. A community. This is what Darren “Young D” Metz and Quinton “Yung Trybez” Nyce excel at. The Haisla hip-hop duo make you feel welcome and important with an energy that is infectious yet balanced. Young D is the Yin to Yung Trybez’ yang. They complement each other perfectly, not just in personality but lyrically, and even spiritually. Talking to them a couple weeks after the shoot, I get the sense they aren’t just making music but rather cultivating an entire movement. 

“As Darren (Young D) always says, ‘we want to make history.’ We want to pave the way for the people coming up behind us. The way we look at ourselves is, we’re just two Indigenous men and we can only speak from our own context,” says Nyce one evening over a couple beers at my apartment where I have invited the duo over to discuss their new album, Life After, just one week before its official release. He continues: “We understand our privilege and we understand that a lot of people don’t get the opportunities we get, but a lot of that was worked for. We did put in the work.” From hawking their CDs at the All Native Basketball Tournament to being on the frontlines of Indigenous resistance and touring the world, Metz and Nyce are cultivating a community. 

Of course, like many, this momentum came to an abrupt halt with the global pandemic. For a group that played 100+ shows after the release of their critically acclaimed sophomore album, Trapline, this was a huge blow. And while their latest, Life After, deals with the isolation that came from life in lockdown — as well as issues of substance use, addiction, depression, family struggles, and racism — it also suggests hope for the future. At least part of this optimistic outlook can be attributed to Indigenous culture. 

“I feel like Indigenous people have developed our own sense of humour that only we get.”

“As Indigenous people who have been shit on year after year after year by the government, from the people, from our own people, the media, the police… I feel like Indigenous people have developed our own sense of humour that only we get,” Nyce says. “For us, the way we grew up listening to rap and hip-hop, it was so dark and heavy and it just weighed on you. You couldn’t listen to it more than once unless you were in the right mindset. So for us, coming up, our message, our music, we wanted to talk about the heavy stuff but with a positive spin. And making sure that at the end of the day you left smiling — on a high note. We never want people to feel down on themselves. We want to lift our people up, not bring them down.” Metz chimes in: “It’s just like our name also, Snotty Nose Rez Kids; it explains who we are without having to explain who we are. You gotta have a sense of humour when you come through trauma.”

That irreverent Indigenous sense of humour is all over Life After. There’s also a lot more sonic experimentation, something the duo accredits to the time and space afforded by the pandemic. “The singles on this album, not one of them sound the same,” says Metz. “They all sound different. A lot of experimentation went into this project as a whole and a lot of that came down to us just having time to sit back and chill with the homies and make music the way it’s supposed to be done.”