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Music

PREMIERE: Joey Stylez Shows Us the Ways of the Warrior in His "Pride of Lions Remix" Video

The most truly Canadian rap video you'll ever see.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

Métis-Cree rapper and activist Joey Stylez has already released a video for his Dragonette collab "Pride of Lions" this year, featuring both artists duking it out in a boxing ring. This video, for a new remix of the song by former A Tribe Called Red member DJ Shub, takes that warrior theme and applies it in a way that feels much closer to Stylez' roots of growing up in the First Nations reserves of Saskatchewan. Juxtaposing Shub's hi-tech, sinewy production with unvarnished footage of Aboriginal life in the Prairies, the clip brings modernity and tradition together.

Stylez explains it best, "We headed out to Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation to meet my uncle/elder Frank, who is the lead dancer on the video. Before we left we smudged and asked the creator to let us capture the warrior way on film that we are so proud of. You can see that the old & new warrior spirit are both represented in the video, and it is exactly the vision we had hoped for."

Phil Witmer makes music and writes in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter.