- [Jeremiah] I went to the darkest places I could ever go.
Drugs, violence, everything.
And I went on a vision quest.
A vision quest, it's like your true calling.
For me, it's hip-hop.
♫ First, you should know that I had risen through the fire
♫ In colorful buckskin
♫ The object of my desire
♫ Is the color of my skin
(music fades)
First name Jeremiah, stage name is Drezus.
I am from the Cree and Anishinaabe tribes.
Coming up in school, native kids were always looked at
like dirty, alcoholics, all the stereotypes.
It really felt like we didn't have a voice
so hip-hop became my voice.
♫ All the lies that I told
♫ All the hearts that I've broke
♫ All love I destroyed
♫ From the drugs that I sold
In the beginning, I thought that I had to be hard.
Hip-hop is about reality.
And as I grew, I decided to really speak about
stuff that was really going on with me
as opposed to always trying to be that tough guy.
♫ Kings in beautiful headdreses
The song Warpath was such an important moment in my life.
I was really speaking to the warrior in native males.
To the warrior within us all.
♫ Baby no faking here for the fans
♫ I'm shouting out Bobby Jones
♫ My auntie my Moshom George
♫ I'm drawing all of my strength
♫ For my people here before me man
A lot of native people, we don't see too many other
native people succeeding.
We like to stay in the dark.
And maybe that's because we were pushed
into the dark for how many centuries.
Maybe we're comfortable there now.
I'm not cool with that though.
I'm trying to bring us into the light.
You know, I'm ready to go.
And I wanna bring my people with me.
For sure.