With a new album and a video on MuchMusic, hip-hop artist Joey Stylez thinks that the reason that his freewheeling style appeals to so many is that it comes out of the tension and challenges of the hardscrabble native communities that he and his peers grew up in.
Long a powerful voice for activist First Nations youth, native hip-hop is poised to blow up outside of the underground and grab all ears.
The artist leading the way is Saskatchewan-born, Vancouver-based Moosmin First Nation MC Joey Stylez. His track “Sugar Cane” is in rotation on MuchMusic’s Rap City and won an Aboriginal People’s Choice Music Award for best music video.
The single is just one killer cut on Stylez’s debut album, The Black Star, which was named after his traditional Plains Cree grandmother’s last name. The disc veers from the geeky punk testimonial “Jail Byrd” and Weezer-y taunt “Mr. Milkman” to the Dirty South vibin’ “Living Proof” or bent rap “She Luvs Me.”
Just like his chameleonic fashion sense, Stylez’s music is able to stand up in any genre. It didn’t happen overnight.
“I’ve been going strong the last 10 years full-on,” says Stylez. “But winning that People’s Choice Award up against the likes of Buffy Ste. Marie and Crystal Shawanda was pretty surprising. I didn’t have a speech prepared because I didn’t think there was any chance of it happening.”
Obviously, his music speaks to the listeners. But he thinks that the reason that his freewheeling style appeals to so many is that it comes out of the tension and challenges of the hardscrabble native communities that he and his peers grew up in. He says that the plains areas are still a bit more old-fashioned and “cowboys ‘n’ Indians” in much of the social structure and it leads to native youth finding an outlet in the street level truths of rap.
Through family and friends, he himself is no stranger to what he calls “the jail culture,” but didn’t want to let his music dwell there.
Still, Stylez can’t go far from the urban music he came up with, but now can talk about other things relevant to his community, too. Like travelling to the Louvre or the MOMA to see great art, or about the wild cities in Japan.
“I’ve been very fortunate, very blessed to see a lot of the world and that has really given me a much more worldly sound,” he says.
“It’s true about my fashion sense, too. I make sure to focus on my look and give up a look that can attract a lot of people to my music. It’s a very cosmetic world, sadly, and you’ve got to pay attention to this.”
The other thing he insists must be followed to the letter is to keep on making music that matters to him.
“I went through a lot of ups and down and grew up in tune with the prison life and I wanted to show the world what goes down in the tiny little speck of the planet I grew up in,” Stylez says.
“If it wasn’t for music, I’d be just another statistic from there. I think a lot of people would be interested in that modern native experience.”
