Drezus Is Back With An Incredible New LP - Nagamo

Drezus is, first and foremost, a commanding MC — a razor-sharp lyricist, storyteller and performer whose music carries the weight of lived experience without ever sacrificing the sheer thrill of great hip-hop. The Nêhiyaw and Anishinaabe artist first emerged from Saskatchewan with pioneering collective Rezofficial before establishing himself as a formidable solo voice, with his acclaimed 2014 album Indian Summer earning multiple Indigenous Music Awards and a JUNO nomination. More than a decade ago, however, Drezus stepped away from music when his life reached a breaking point. After hitting his lowest point in jail, he began attending sweat ceremonies, where an elder who took him under his wing repeatedly urged him to Nagamo — an Ojibwe word roughly meaning “sing” or “sing your song.” “That word cracked something open and sent me back to relearn the ceremony and language my family had lost during the residential school era,” Drezus says. “This album is what I came back with.”

The result is Nagamo, Drezus’s most ambitious and personal album to date, but also a reminder of just how potent he is on the mic. Across the record, he moves between dexterous bars, infectious hooks and unflinching storytelling, creating an album that can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with contemporary hip-hop while remaining unmistakably his own. That ambition is reflected in a stacked cast of collaborators, including WOWGR8 of EARTHGANG, AJ McQueen, Snotty Nose Rez Kids, Sebastian Gaskin, NorthideBaby, Renata Flores and Jully Black, with production from Pops, Junia-T, Ski Mask Dave and others. “Every verse [is] another chapter in a life that could have ended a dozen different ways,” says Drezus. “Nagamo is built on the idea that music doesn’t recognize borders, reservations, or genres — it just recognizes truth.” His Indigenous identity and cultural reclamation are inseparable from the record, but Nagamo refuses to put Drezus in a box: this is a fiercely competitive rapper making an expansive hip-hop album on his own terms.

That balance comes through on “Sweetgrass on the Dash,” a melodic, hard-hitting track about walking away from addiction and toward the teachings that helped Drezus rebuild his life. Made with fellow Saskatchewan artist Ski Mask Dave, the song pairs “real lyrics with infectious melodies” with an image familiar across Indian Country: sweetgrass resting on the dashboard, carrying protection and prayer along for the journey. “It’s a song about second chances, and the track carries that medicine literally and spiritually,” Drezus explains. It’s emblematic of what makes Nagamo so compelling: technical skill, hooks and undeniable hip-hop swagger sit alongside vulnerability, culture and hard-earned perspective, without one ever diminishing the other. By the final track, Drezus says, “you know exactly what I went through and exactly how I made it out. Tapwe.”