Drezus released his album Nagamo on October 9, 2026, through Public Records, distributed by Fontana North, a 12 song statement from one of the most decorated voices in canadian hip hop. The Drezus Nagamo album pairs him with Snotty Nose Rez Kids on the title track and production from Boogey the Beat.
Drezus, born Jeremiah Manitopyes, is an Anishinaabe and Nehiyaw artist from the Muskowekwan and Cote First Nations, based in Calgary. His standing in the scene is not a marketing claim. He is a JUNO nominee, a recipient of the SOCAN Indigenous Songwriter Award, an MTV Video Music Award winner through his work with Taboo of the Black Eyed Peas, and a four time Indigenous Music Award winner, honours built across a career that started with Team Rezofficial.
Drezus Nagamo Album: The Title Track and Guests
The title track Nagamo, produced by Boogey the Beat with Jamie Kruse, features Snotty Nose Rez Kids, the Haisla duo whose own run has made them one of the most visible acts in Indigenous hip hop. Putting the two acts on the album’s title track is a deliberate piece of sequencing: it frames the record as a conversation inside a movement, not a solo artist working alone.
Around it, the tracklist released to streaming on October 9 includes Running Away, produced by Skimask Dave and Jamie Kuse, Stolen, produced by Darius Pops, Sweetgrass On The Dash, and The Good Life (Mino Bimaadiziwin), produced by Karri. The titles themselves carry the album’s themes of land, family and continuity, in both English and Anishinaabemowin, and the production credits mix longtime collaborators with new names.
A Career Built on Anthems
Drezus first reached a national audience as a solo artist with his 2013 album Redwinter, whose title track became an anthem of the Idle No More movement. The follow up Indian Summer extended that reach, and his later single Ballad of Bobby Jones, featuring Sebastian Gaskin, continued the same line of direct, story led writing. He has shared stages with Drake, 50 Cent and Mobb Deep, and his acting work has taken him into productions including Yellowstone, alongside soundtrack contributions across film and television.
That history is the context Nagamo arrives in. This is not a debut or a comeback. It is a new full length from an artist whose catalogue already holds a documented place in canadian hip hop history, released through an Indigenous owned label structure in Public Records with national distribution through Fontana North.
Why Nagamo Matters for the Scene
Indigenous hip hop in Canada has moved from the margins of the conversation to its own award categories, festival headline slots and label infrastructure over the past decade, and Drezus is one of the artists who did the early work that made that shift possible. An album like Nagamo, arriving with major distribution and a title track collaboration with the scene’s best known duo, is evidence of where that work has led.
For listeners coming to him for the first time, the title track is the entry point, and Redwinter remains the essential background listen. For longtime followers, Nagamo is the latest chapter in a catalogue that has always treated the album as a document. The record is out now on all major platforms, released October 9, 2026, and it earns its place in this fall’s Canadian release calendar on the strength of the work itself.
The Live and Community Side of the Catalogue
The album also lands in the middle of an active year on the ground. Drezus headlined the music programming at Toronto’s UpFRONT Festival of Indigenous Arts, Music and Culture in August 2026, and he continues to appear as a mentor figure in rooms like SaskMusic’s Indigenous Music Series, where he speaks with emerging artists about navigating the industry. That combination, new album, festival headline slot, and mentorship work in the same season, is the pattern of an artist operating as an institution builder as much as a recording act.
It also explains the choice of collaborators across Nagamo. Snotty Nose Rez Kids on the title track, producers drawn from inside the community, and titles that move between English and Anishinaabemowin all point the same direction: the record is built to be shared inside the movement it comes from, then carried outward by its quality. Twelve songs, one clear address, and a catalogue that keeps growing on its own terms.
