Snotty Nose Rez Kids: The Warriors

By Kerry Doole

Snotty Nose Rez Kids - "The Warriors" (Independent) This Vancouver hip-hop duo has been gaining real momentum of late. An impressive self-titled debut album came out in Jan. 2017, and was quickly followed up with another full-length mixtape, Average Savage.

This compelling and timely new track addresses the currently heated topic of the planned Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline, and it is both eloquent and angry.  Written in support of Tiny House Warriors, a group fighting the project, it can be viewed as a call to action against the Canadian federal government's desecration of indigenous lands via their support of this pipeline

"The Canadian government does not get the final say when it comes to our land because this is more than land to us as indigenous peoples, this is our identity," SNRK member Yung Trybez recently told Noisey. "This isn’t just a pipeline on our land with the risk of infecting our waters; this is the intersection of violence against our lands, bodies, and governance."

Over a sparse yet gently mesmerising beat, the rhymes are delivered with fluid intensity. They tell a story of "broken treaties and unholy matrimony," and threaten that "this dream catcher will catch your pipe dream." Such symbols of resistance as Rosa Parks, Standing Rock and Colin Kaepernick are referenced, and there is no mistaking the resolve expressed here ("I'll die for my land"). The powerful video directed by Alex Mof reinforces the message vividly.

Arguably the best protest song released this year.

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