Yo, what's up?
I'm YNG Martyr and I'm a First Nations artist from Canberra
coming from the Wiradjuri tribe.
Let's get it.
Yeah so the inspiration to start music was really weird.
I used to play like a shit ton of Call of Duty and just weird little internet games as a kid
and I remember some dude was grilling up in a lobby.
He's like, somebody rap battle me.
Let's go, let's go.
Just going off and I used his gamer tag in a freestyle.
I was just taking the piss
but yeah, everyone lit up in the lobby it started going off
and from there I was like
man, I can connect words on the spot
and it gets me, I guess a reaction from people
or people enjoy it.
There was a massive disconnect in
rap as kind of a party trick or a cool thing that I could do
compared to actually writing music
and it took me a few years to really come into my own
I guess as an artist compared to as someone who could freestyle
And I reckon I'll come in with a verse there.
Come with the verse?
I'll come with the verse after that.
Yeah, easy.
I'm not the cool kid or I'm not the good looking kid
so I have to find something else that will
that people could gravitate to or that would let me be accepted
and I hate that that's apart of us
but I think all of us to some level are like
we're always trying to fit in
and I think music was the one thing
that didn’t feel like an identity.
It felt like I’m able to just create and do things that I genuinely want to.
I guess as I socialised more and started going out to parties
and just doing stupid teenager shit
I realised, oh shit people enjoy this
and I'd be at parties and be like, oh rap, rap, rap
and I never really had that as a kid.
I'd always been kind of quiet and shy and reserved
so to have something that put the spotlight on me was cool.
I found myself around the wrong crowd of people I think in general
and that lead a lot to just just like
getting fucked up to fit in
and to feel like I was a part of a group
or that I was doing something that would help me
or, you know what I mean?
It just lead me down bad ways.
I was hanging out with some friends
I bought some acid
and we popped it.
We were just relaxing
and then my tongue started to go numb
and I kind of felt my heart going off.
It felt like I was stuck repeating the same things over and over
Like I was in a loop of like not even just the last few minutes
but my whole life was just on a massive cycle
and I was like I need to get out of this.
I need to break out
and I was so f***ed up and deluded in my thoughts.
I ended up in hospital the next day
and I ran to the point where my feet were stripped on the bottom of all my skin
and I was pissing out lumps of protein
because the muscle in my legs had broken down
and I ended up jumping off of a house.
Landing on my spine on a fence.
I was just in like a fucking state, bro.
I think that kind of woke me up to a lot of things.
Like I started to take myself more seriously
and realise that I'm not doing the right shit
and I'm sick of trying to fit in with people.
I think I fully became my own person after that.
I started my job after that
and that's when YNG began
and that's when everything really started to pick up.
That's when my life changed and things started to flip around.
Being an internet kid growing up
I was all about just like memes.
Random internet culture.
I constantly heard artists’ music that I listened to on the memes
and I can't remember which artist it was
but I remember hearing their song in a meme
and I was thinking man
I could hit that meme creator up and put some of my music underneath it.
80% of my fan base currently
comes from the fact that I just reached out to people
and just on some genuine shit
like ay, I love your content
like let's work here or can I pay you to use my music.
Can I support you?
Can I help you?
I started making a little bit off music
and I was marketing my music online
using meme pages, influencers
random little niches online to get my music heard
and I realised that I didn't have the budget from my job to support that
and so I went to a bank and I got out a loan.
I pulled out 15k and I'm like if I'm actually going to give this a shot
I need to go balls to the wall.
Just go crazy with it
so got the 15k, wrote down a plan
and that’s when Nike Ticks came about.
Then I was like I’m going to spend every cent on this fucking song
and I’m going to get it out of here.
I’m gonna take it off.
And then here’s just a bunch of shit that I’m trying to make happen
so I got “Talk To You Later” doing really well.
Heap of monthly listeners.
I looked crazy because I had all these little bits of paper
with like I’m going to do this or I’m trying to manifest shit.
I’m writing everything on my wall and reading it before I go to work
and then I wrote by the end of October or whatever month it was
I’ll be living off my music.
I was able to quit my job by the time I said I would
so that was crazy.
Do I regret having that experience?
And I think what I’ve come to is
I’m kind of glad it happened
because I don’t think I would have started taking myself seriously
or giving myself self love
or like progresing in life
if all of that hadn’t happened to me.
Yeah, Nike Ticks was weird.
I was in a foul mood that day.
I started looking for sad shit.
I’m typing like, XXXTENTACION, Billie Eilish type beat.
Acoustic guitar type beat.
None of that shit was clicking
so then I looked up a Ski Mask The Slump God type beat
and I found this producer called VM
and shout out to VM.
He’s a legend.
I found that “Nike Ticks” beat.
I remember hearing the...
it started knocking in
I was like oh, it’s on this.
Threw it into FL and I basically just recorded freestyle takes
and then the chorus was formed in 5, 10 minutes
and then I made sure I wrote the verse
and I think you can hear that as well in it.
Like the verse is a lot more thought out and lyrical then the chorus
but I feel like the chorus needed to be that way.
Needed to be just on some stupid shit.
I wasn’t really writing it.
I was picking up on what I was hearing in the beat
and it was like everything was layed out for me
I just had to kind of discover it or find it.
It was on some weird shit.
Like I felt like there was...
without getting too religious or spiritual.
I felt like there was something there outside of myself that had layed that song out
and I just picked it up
and all I had to do was put pen to paper and just start moving.
Hold up.
Bro hold up.
Nah I like, bro.
Yeah so the video for “1992” ended up on World Star.
That was a massive moment for me
because I had seen all of these big artists
that I fucked with as a kid on World Star.
Some people, “fuck this kid”.
Some people just genuinely going at me.
Some people just loving it, supporting it.
I remember reading a comment on the World Star video
and dude just straight up says
“Don’t come to Chicago”.
Like what the fuck did I do?
I’m self aware.
I’m a goofy motherfucker.
I look goofy as shit
but I feel like that’s good for me, man.
People look at me and they’re like ah okay yeah.
They expect something.
I love exceeding people’s expectations
of what they’re thinking I’m going to do.
I kind of got sick, like I said, of just doing either boom bap
or kind of like aggressive screamo type music.
I got over it to a point where I’m like, man
I feel like shit and I can’t express that.
I couldn’t like sit there and flex on a boom bap track about it.
It just came from wanting to express other sides of me
and I was horrendous at singing.
I still am pretty fucking trash to be honest.
“Ease Off, TTYL, Fell Like This”
and those are some of my best songs
and I think those are some of the songs that really shaped me as an artist
and made me not just a rapper, you know what I mean?
I started making music and making art.
That’s the shit that I love so, yeah.
I know I’m gonna die some day
Glad that I’m alive today
You were on my mind today
Said the things that I had to say
In terms of how I fell, man
I feel fucking amazing compared to where I was at.
Like life has fully changed
and I feel like I’m doing what I’m meant to be doing
so I no longer need to look to escape anymore.
I think my best strength and the thing I’m most proud of is that
I’ve come to terms with who I am
and I’m not really
I’m not trying to escape that anymore.
Life will just batter you sometimes
like you will get fucked so many times
and I feel like I really learnt how to deal with life through that
and that’s some shit that I think will always stick with me.
No matter how bad things are like I got this.
I can do this.
I’m okay, you’re okay, we got this.
I think that’s what the number one lesson has been for me.