Drezus on Nagamo, fatherhood and the good life

On Monday morning, I checked in with Drezus:

“We still good to talk at 10?”

“Just on a quick bike ride with my lil guy,” he texted. “The boy got a new bike and is taking me on a lil journey lol.”

I happily obliged and we agreed to 10:30 a.m.

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We were catching up about Nagamo, his first full-length album in 12 years. When we began talking about the experiences behind it, the Anishinaabe and Nēhiyaw artist returned to a moment in ceremony: an Elder calling on him to sing.

He had met the Elder through a treatment program in Manitoba. The Elder took him under his wing, sharing teachings, songs and the work that went into preparing a sweat lodge.

Inside the lodge, he remembered the Elder addressing him by his spirit name.

“Old Man Eagle,” the Elder would call to him. “Nagamo!”

Sing your song.

Drezus had watched the Elder sing in the heat and wondered how he could do it. When the invitation came to him, he did not know where to begin.

“I had no idea what to say,” he recalled.

He compared the feeling to standing in front of a crowd for the first time. He wanted to sing, but did not know how to find the sound.

“Bro, I don’t know what to do,” he remembered telling the Elder.

The Elder’s response was encouragement, not pressure. Listen to the songs. In time, he would get it.

Drezus had not grown up with traditional singers or powwow in his family. He wanted that connection, and the Elder gave him ways to practise: printed words, recordings and time to learn.

When he eventually sang his first song, the feeling stayed with him.

“I felt like that day I finally opened my wings up,” he said.

He remembered a rush of energy and emotion, and wanted more of that connection. He was already a father, thinking about how to be more present for his sons and live differently.

The album takes its name from that invitation. But Drezus was careful not to describe the experience as an instant transformation. It marked a beginning. Changing the way he lived took years.

A story he wanted to tell

Drezus had spent about two years working on Nagamo. Intended release dates came and went as he continued writing, looking for the songs that would hold the record together.

“I felt like I wanted to tell a story,” he said. “I wanted there to be some type of cohesiveness.”

He did not want to put out a group of songs simply because they were ready. He wanted the record to speak to what he had been through and where he was now. Some of the music he wrote during those months did not make the album. Other songs helped him find its shape.

The years between albums had not been years away from music. He continued releasing singles, and he revealed that an album, Public Enemy, was almost ready to go around 2016 but never came out. Making another full-length project required a different kind of attention, and other parts of his life needed it.

He spoke about getting sober with his partner, becoming a father again and reassessing what he had been carrying.

“That shifted everything,” he said.

Releasing albums took a back seat while he worked through those changes. The experiences were still there when he returned to them in his writing.

In the first days after Nagamo came out, listeners were telling him what they heard in it. Some said they needed the music. Others recognized what making it had meant to him.

“And that’s special just to have fans think of me as well,” he said.

He described a relationship in which listeners cared about what he was going through, just as he hoped his music could help them through their own experiences.

“It’s literally like creating a small community of our own.”

What community gave back

That relationship had already helped shape his life outside the studio.

As songs such as “Red Winter” and “Warpath” reached people, communities began inviting Drezus to visit and speak with young people. At first, he was unsure what he could offer beyond the music.

Those invitations also asked something of him. To encourage young people, he felt he needed to live the things he was talking about.

“So, the communities literally helped with my healing,” he said.

He did not describe himself as arriving with all the answers. He saw the invitations as guidance, too—people asking him to show up, and giving him a reason to keep doing the work.

Creator’s Path, the youth initiative he began with his younger brother, grew from that relationship. Its collaborators bring skills in songwriting, music production, video, fashion and other fields into communities, helping young people find ways to express themselves.

For Drezus, the work is also a way to acknowledge the people who have supported him.

He has been learning from communities while sharing what he knows. That same exchange now has a place on Nagamo.

The Good Life (Mino Bimaadiziwin)

Binesi, the son who had taken his father out on his new bike that morning, appears on two tracks at the end of Nagamo. In the interlude bearing his name, father and son share a language lesson.

The interlude leads into the album’s final track, “The Good Life (Mino Bimaadiziwin).” Binesi can be heard in the hook alongside his father and brother: “Mino Bimaadiziwin.”

Drezus told me the recordings grew out of a family trip to Vancouver this summer, to see a World Cup match. He brought his sons to the studio, where they contributed vocals to “The Good Life.” While they were at the microphone, he asked Binesi whether they could talk about the language they had been learning.

The exchange was an extension of something already happening at home.

Drezus had returned from an Anishinaabe language festival at Keeseekoose First Nation in Saskatchewan, inspired by the young people he heard speaking, the Elders teaching and the everyday opportunities to learn. He brought home books and stickers to label household items.

“We started learning together as a family at home,” he said.

He identified the language in the interlude as Nakawē. He also spoke about his Nēhiyaw identity, and about growing up with his late kokum speaking Cree in the house.

As a child, he had not taken to learning it in the way he now wished he had. Bringing language into his own household was a way to honour what she had tried to pass on.

He was not presenting himself as someone who had finished learning. The family was not fluent yet, he said. He hoped they could get there together.

“I want them to know who they are.”

Toward the end of our conversation, I asked a question prompted by the album’s closing track: what was his definition of the good life?

“Be present in the moment,” he said.

He described it as something he was practising, including on difficult days. Life would not always mean happiness or a big win. There would be losses, too. Being present meant taking in what was happening, working through it and deciding what to do next.

Then he returned to the bike ride that morning.

At the skate park, Binesi had done things on his new bike that he had not thought he could do. Watching his son try something new gave Drezus an example of what he meant.

He described the good life as “encouraging my family, but not only my family, but encouraging others to like go for it.”

Before we spoke about the album, his son had been taking him on a little journey.

By the end of our conversation, he had brought us back to it.

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Nagamo, Drezus’s first full-length album in 12 years, is out now. Listen on your preferred streaming platform.