Holy fok they’re deadly: Snotty Nose Rez Kids come to the Encore at Uptown this Thursday

Snotty Nose Rez Kids. // photo by Sterling LaRose

First Nations hip hop duo Snotty Nose Rez Kids have been making a name for themselves over the course of the last few years.

Their debut single, “Skoden,” rapidly went viral and its critical acclaim paved the way for a series of well-received and Polaris-nominated albums from the Haisla rappers. The pairing of Darren “Young D” Metz and Quinton “Yung Trybez” Nyce, from Kitamaat Village, British Columbia, makes for a sound which never sticks to one particular hip hop subgenre, and always feels like it’s fresh as hell.

Earlier this year, Snotty Nose Rez Kids signed to signed to Sony Music Canada, and their most recent EP, last year’s I’M GOOD, HBU? continues to yield fantastic singles and accompanying videos, with the most recent, “DAMN RIGHT,” an absolute banger. Their Hot Planet tour kicked off Tuesday in Omaha and comes to the Encore at Uptown Theater on Thursday, November 30.

We spoke with Metz and Nyce by phone from their studio ahead of the stop, where the pair took a break from working on their next album to chat about the last couple years and what they’ve meant to Snotty Nose Rez Kids.

The Pitch: After being a group for over seven years now, what was it like signing with a major label this year?

Darren: It’s been a dream come true, man. We’ve been working really fucking hard to get to this point. I never forget, like, the moment after we signed, we just looked at each other like, “Okay, now the real work begins.” I don’t want to compare it to getting drafted into the league, but that’s kinda our equivalent.

Quinton: I mean, this is a big deal for us because we pushed this shit as far as we possibly could on our own and now we get to see what it’s like to have some support.

I have to imagine that putting out all of this stuff on smaller labels and your own has been a grind. What has that grind been like for the two of you?

Quinton: It’s a lot of learning, man. The way we treat this whole thing is like we’re in a university class and we’re taking a four-year degree and we’re just learning the industry inside and out just by experience. I guess it’s more like work experience for us. We’ve both been to university. I got a diploma and I’ve been a heavy duty mechanic. I’ve worked my ass off all my life, so that’s what this felt like for me over the last five years, I guess–just kind of understanding what the music industry is all about.

We had some trouble early on in our careers with a label that we had to buy out of eventually. That put a weird taste in our mouths over signing with the actual label. It took us a lot of time to build our trust back. We had to understand the industry before we did anything like that again and I think that we have a good grasp on how the industry works and how labels work and how deals work.

And we got the lawyers involved, so yeah, we felt very comfortable in signing with Sony.

Over the course of your career, you’ve had these opportunities to be on TV and perform at these various awards ceremonies and things like that. When you’ve done it, you have brought it. Do you see that continuing the college analogy, like a semester end project for you all to show up with these performances that put you even further on the map?

Darren: When it comes to these award shows, our mentality is, “If we’re not gonna win the award, we’re gonna win at least best performance,” you know what I mean? Those are just opportunities that we just never take for granted. We used to dream about having an opportunity like we had last year, performing at the Junos here in Canada. Just to be able to showcase what we do on national TV, it’s like, you gotta come with it. It’s not just another show. It’s like, “Nah, this is our moment.”

Quinton: It’s moments like that where we get to make statements. We’re on our [fourth] Polaris prize shortlist. It feels like every album that we make, at least makes the top 10 and you get an opportunity to get on stage where our industry people are watching. You never know who’s gonna be in the crowd, so we always make sure that we bring it.

I remember when we got nominated for Life After, which was our third album that we got shortlisted. We had a little bit of a debate because we had a show in Salt Lake City that night. We had to just say, “This is about our legacy at this point and whatever we’re going to leave behind, we want to just make sure that we’re able to participate in these things because no one’s ever done this that has looked like us before.”

For us right now, we’re taking it in our hands and we’re just making sure that the legacy that we leave behind people can be proud of and people can look up to us and be like, “I want to be like that.”

Speaking of being in front of audiences, like, you did a short tour earlier this year with Pup. I’m curious as to what that experience was like for you all, considering that might be a different kind of audience, or is it?

Quinton: It’s definitely a different demographic, but at the same time, they’re all ragers, right? It’s a punk band, and we’re like a rage rap group, especially with our shows and stuff. So they were ready for us. We were ready for them and we just came prepared knowing what we were getting into and they just turned up with us. They were very receptive and I think it just shows to what kind of a band Pup is to have fans like that are dope like that.

I’m talking to you while you’re in the studio. I assume you’re, you’re taking a break from working on it right now. What has been the process putting together this new album? Is it something that you were already working on before you signed with Sony?

Darren: Yeah, I mean, it’s a concept that we’ve had dating back to the pandemic. This is the album that we were going to work on after we released TRAPLINE but then, you know, the pandemic happened and that kind of changed everything for us. But at the same time, that led to us making our album Life After, which I’m still really happy that we made, because that’s what we needed at the time, but Red Future is the hardest we’ve ever worked towards an album.

Quinton: I think we have like, 38 demos.

Darren: Yeah, we have like over 35 demos. Back in the day, when we first started, we would have like 13-15 tracks, and they’d be like, “Hey, that’s the album.” This one, we’re going above and beyond. I remember, I think it was sometime last year, when SZA announced that she was done recording her album, and she had a whiteboard just full of so many songs that she’s done. She’s like, “Oh, now it’s time to pick,” and then Trybez actually sent that to us, and he was like, “Yo, we’re gonna do this one day,” and then here we are, how many demos in and songs in, and like, “Damn, we’re getting close to filling out a white board…”

We’ve been putting in work, man, and we treat every album like it’s our baby and this one is like, for sure, hands down, gonna be the best album we’ve ever made.

What have you learned over the years making albums–in addition to demoing way more than you might need in this case–that you’ve applied to making this next album?

Darren: I mean, we’re always learning about something. When it comes to that, we put our pride and ego aside, and we just focus on, “Okay, how can we make this dope?” The first album, we structured it to the best way that we could but we’ve learned over time our formula that we use.

We kind of started to figure it out when we did TRAPLINE. I’ll say The Average Savage is where it comes to having a serious concept and we just build around that. And with each album that we’ve done, we’ve just gotten better and better and better–not just with, like, concepts, but song structure or, especially with this album, trying to figure out unconventional ways to make a record. We listen to a lot of classic albums whenever we’re in album mode to draw inspiration whenever we can.

But I would say the biggest thing we learned is having it feel like a rollercoaster ride. It’s like waves. It’s up, it’s down. You know, you’re gonna feel good, you’re gonna rage, you’re gonna … You’re happy, you’re gonna feel love, you’re gonna feel like fucking “Land back!” you know what I mean? This album is gonna have like a little bit of everybody, and this album is damn near everything that we learned along the way.

Quinton: And for us too, it’s important to find inspiration in places that you might not think of. And for us, we listen to metal, we listen to screamo rap, we listen to everything, right? And we just take everything in and just like see what people like. I think one of the most important things that we learned going into this album and that we’ve been really practicing is experimenting and just pushing ourselves to the limits that we never thought we were capable of.

We got songs where we’re singing, we got songs where we were screaming, doing heavy metal shit. It’s insane. I think like one thing that we learned over the years is just being able to trust one another. I think that made us really comfortable in the studio and made us really efficient and just being able to trust that we have each other’s best interest in mind at all times.

Whenever we say something to one another, we don’t take it we don’t take it hard on ourselves, we’re never hard on ourselves, and we’re just honest to each other.

Darren: Also with that, seeing it through. If we have an idea, I’m like, “Okay, let’s see it through.” Because you know, in the past we’ve had ideas, and then halfway through we’ll be like, “Ah, no, let’s just stop that. Our biggest thing has just been seeing it through.

Snotty Nose Rez Kids play the Encore at Uptown Theater on Thursday, November 30, with opener Paris Williams. Details on that show here.