Matt Brevner, a Canadian hip-hop artist with Trinidadian and Japanese Canadian roots, faced backlash in 2021 after a Vancouver street preacher’s event was misrepresented as "homophobic" by media—including a CTV reporter—sparking outrage despite his message of redemption. His label Urbnet cancelled him, 90% of friends distanced, and girlfriend Amanda Benko endured death threats, losing three agencies over the false controversy. Now at Rebel News, Brevner releases In Jesus’ Name this summer, reclaiming his art for faith over fear, proving truth persists beyond cancel culture’s distortions. [Automatically generated summary]
Matt Brevner is a hip-hop artist and producer from Vancouver, British Columbia.
He now works for Rebel News as an editor and videographer.
Matt Brevner, thanks for joining me.
How are you doing today?
Thanks for having me.
I'm a little tired adjusting to the East Coast time difference.
I'm running hot on coffee, but that's fine.
That's how we do it around.
The first thing I wanted to mention was how I first found out about you, which is actually obviously from the music scene.
I think it was around 2016 or 2017.
Me and my friends were watching music videos, and there was a beef you had with another Vancouver rapper named Mad Child from Swollen Members.
I don't know if I'm dating myself here at all, you guys, but that was sort of the start of when things started to get, I guess, kind of controversial for you, would you say?
Yeah, at least publicly.
I've always been the type to, I guess, question authority and stand up for the little guy and have a strong sense of justice internally.
So yeah, that was kind of the first thing that really, I guess, I've always been a musician's musician and had a reputation for that.
But that kind of propelled me more into the front of the Canadian hip-hop scene and Vancouver specifically West Coast.
Now, not to say that he had a, him and Swole members had a cookie cutter public image at the time or anything, but that sort of like exposed people to a different, more like, I guess you could say crooked side.
Like people always thought of him, I think, and this isn't even disrespect to him as somebody who raps about drugs and openly talks about doing them.
But as far as cheating people out of money, as you say, that was something that everybody started to say, hey, wait a minute, not only is this guy sort of exposing him, he's a good rapper as well.
Do you want to give about some thoughts about how that actually affected your life about not being paid and everything?
And does he refute that?
It's interesting.
I think the reason why it received the backlash that it did was that album, the Dope Sick album.
Thematically, it was about redemption and turning a new leaf and doing the right thing.
And even the song that we did together was a song called Jitters.
And it's about salvation.
It's about God.
It's about God saving your life and plucking you out of the darkness.
And even the video, it was based around Rum Runners from the 30s and Dutch Robinson from the Ohio Players was like the in the pulpit.
So I think that was the messaging across the whole press run and the tour.
And you know, so when this kind of came out that he wasn't like, for example, like when you're an opening act on a tour, you usually get like in the green room, you show up to the venue early.
There's usually like water and food and a vegetable plate or whatever, because you've been driving four to eight hours to get to a venue, so you're parched, you know.
But it was like little things like he would even like call the promoters ahead of time to make sure that he would just get the extra hundred bucks instead of making sure that all the staff had like the vegetables and stuff.
Like I don't really want to like, you know, maybe he's a changed person, maybe he's reformed.
I'm over it.
But the impact on my career at the time was it was kind of heavy, you know, because it was someone that I grew up looking up to and I felt like we were doing like a really amazing thing.
We were nominated for a Much Music Award that year.
It was my friends and my production company that did all the video work.
We put up the money for the video.
And it just felt like really, I felt really disrespected.
Even at the time, Swollen was on, they were doing a reunion tour.
They were on tour in Europe.
And I still wanted to go to the Much Music Awards because that's like a massive achievement, especially for someone from the West Coast because we're kind of historically forgotten about when it comes to the national conversation around hip-hop music.
So yeah, I thought I tried to, I reached out to Subnoise and try to get tickets for me and the videographer, the producer, the team to go.
And They wouldn't give us tickets.
They're like, oh, well, Mad's not going, so you guys can't go.
But then I actually got a phone call from a friend of mine who worked at Chum from high school.
And she's like, hey, I have your tickets.
What address should I send this to?
I didn't even ask her.
And I told her, like, oh, I thought we weren't invited.
She's like, dude, you're nominated.
What are you talking about?
Yeah, exactly.
So it was just like little things.
I think it was like a lot of ego and a lot of, you know, I mean, I haven't spoken to him in over.
It's been a really long time.
We've spoken, I sent him a, we exchanged niceties on Instagram in the last six months, just about, I think, Dope Sick hit a milestone.
It went gold.
So I reached out.
I was like, hey, congratulations, like, you know, through it all.
Like, I'm glad that I did it.
But yeah, at the time, it was really difficult because it put me in a bit of a financial hole.
And not only that, I was associated as the guy who worked with Mad Child now.
And so I was like, well, what do I do with that?
So I really had, I felt like after, I felt like I got something, like I felt violated.
I felt like I got ripped off.
I got robbed.
And when he started living off Snack, who was a good friend of mine, and we were roommates actually at the time, it was kind of like, okay, well, retribution time.
Like, you know, you're not going to pay me back monetarily, but I'm going to now take the opportunity because you stepped out to set the record straight and control the narrative.
So you're talking about Snack the Ripper as another rapper for those.
Yeah.
So you mentioned your personality is always standing up for yourself and speaking out.
Do you think that's lended you to become into this news career, this news media career with Rebel News and being a cameraman and now being on camera?
You're working out there with Dre Humphrey.
Mentioned: Japanese Identity & Racism00:10:04
The fans and the staff here love the work you guys do.
Has that type of personality do you feel like it's a natural progression into what you're doing now?
It's definitely, God's had his hand on my life throughout all of this, and it's the perfect job that I never knew that I wanted, you know, because it allows me to exercise all my muscles.
Like I'm a very, I'm an artist by trade and by nature.
So if I'm not exercising that creative muscle on a regular basis, it weighs on my self-esteem ultimately and like my mental health.
So to have a job that's in a field where I get to create every day and also partner with like-minded, virtuous people who want to tell the truth and represent and clear the underdog in a lot of cases is just so rewarding to me.
And it's, yeah, it's great.
I wanted to talk to you about some of the Vancouver politics and some of the stuff that's going on right now.
The West Coast is notoriously more liberal, even though it doesn't seem like there's much difference across the country now.
You mentioned to me off camera about the history of your parents and how that relates to what's going on now.
Do you want to share a little bit of that with the audience?
Sure, yeah.
I'm Trinidadian, and on my Trinidadian side, there's some Portuguese, there's some German, there's some Jewish, there's all sorts of, we're a bit of like a mutt of the Caribbean.
And on my mom's side, we're Japanese.
My grand was born in Japan in Wakayama, and my grandpa was born in Canada in Alberta.
And they actually met in a concentration camp because not too many people know this, but during World War II, the Canadian government decreed that Japanese Canadians were a threat to the country.
They considered them spies.
So they rounded up all the Japanese Canadians, seized all their land, all their assets, and they put them into labor camps.
And just the icing on the cake of these labor camps is they were actually charged monetarily for their room and board while working in these camps.
So my family lost a lot of land that would be otherwise now like prime real estate.
We're talking like tens of millions of dollars worth of land now.
And it's not something that I, you know, I walk around like, oh, my lot in life is so miserable because my grandparents got ripped off.
That's not what I'm saying.
I think we're all accountable for our own success and our own attitude and our own weight.
However, this is something that's been ingrained in me since I was a child.
Like, hey, the government isn't necessarily as cracked up as they say to be.
They don't always have your best interest in mind.
Something that's really crazy about my grandpa, too, is, you know, he actually wanted to join the military and go overseas and fight.
And he had his, he had to be 16, I believe.
So he had his dad forge his enlistment papers, his signature to fake his age so that he could go.
And you know, before he was actually deployed, they figured out that he wasn't of age.
So he went from wanting to fight for the country to being locked up by the country, which is just- That's crazy.
And when I talked to him about it, I was like, grandpa, you really wanted to go to, you know, you wanted to go to the South Pacific and fight.
And he's like, yeah, all my friends are going.
I had nothing else to do.
But it was just like a different spirit about that generation.
They weren't gun owners.
They didn't keep guns at the house.
But he always told me, he's like, hey, you don't have anything to worry about until they start taking your guns.
And he was just like, it was a joke.
But I think they'd both be very concerned as to what's happening today.
So maybe I'm a little bit flighty.
Maybe I'm a little extra sensitive to overreach and restrictions.
But yeah, that's my personal conviction.
I've just, I'm a product of that, literally, you know, and that wasn't too long ago.
So yeah, it worries me for sure.
It seems like you're talking about not having a victim mentality when you're talking about not walking around like you like this is your lot in life.
I mentioned or I wanted to mention and we can show a clip now of a part in a video you had with Dre Humphrey at a it's kind of unrelated but it was a it was an environmental march.
So let's take a look at that clip and we'll talk about it right after.
And I'm going to ask one more question because you had mentioned a couple times that power has been in the hands of white males essentially for too long.
So do you believe that corruption is inherently a skin color issue?
It's absolutely a function of capitalism and indoctrination, all those subtle things in our society that privilege, etc.
Well, I know that.
I mean, I don't know if you can see, I'm kind of a long-haired guy.
Well, before I retired, I was, you know, had a business suit and did all that, and everybody called me sir.
And now I look like somebody who could live under a bridge.
I wouldn't say that.
But I'm looking much more casual.
Because, you know, I'm Japanese and Trinidadian.
Drea is black and indigenous.
And I guess when we come sometimes to events like this, people don't want to talk to us.
And it's almost like in all other situations, our identities, our skin color, our heritage matter, except when we're bringing up, you know, talking points which people don't want to talk about or easy to disregard.
So in that, you're talking about like intersectionality and when people they want to give you the benefit of the doubt because of the color of your skin until it comes to the pass that you don't actually agree with them.
Have you experienced a lot of that before you worked with us?
Or are you talking about only since you've been doing news coverage?
I experience that every day of my life because it's so like appealing to walk through life with this notion that something happened before you were born that is so atrocious and so overwhelming that it's like a literally like a get out of jail card for everything that you should be accountable to.
And you know, although that sounds appealing in the short term, it actually like robs you of your inhibition.
It robs you of your identity.
It robs you of your self-esteem and your dignity.
And it's just, I think it's evil.
I'm a Christian.
My identity comes from who the Lord says I am, who Jesus Christ says I am in him.
And the rest of it is secondary.
So I don't, you know, and you know, it's in Canada as a a black and Japanese Canadian outside of like my heritage or my my national identity as a Canadian, I never really subscri I didn't feel Asian, I didn't feel black, I'm just Canadian, I'm just a Canadian dude.
When I say I mean, you're wearing plaid, so yeah, there you go, right?
So, I just, it all just seems like a little bit nonsensical to me.
And that's, and this is, you know, I don't mean to sound insensitive because I've obviously, I'm literally like a byproduct of oppressive regimes and racism and all that.
And I'm not saying racism isn't real, and I'm not saying I haven't experienced prejudice or racism in my life.
I'm just saying it's not, you know, I was with my ex-girlfriend four or five years ago.
I was joking about how, like, you know, it would be very difficult or terrible to be like a straight white male in Canada in 2016.
And she's like, you're crazy.
I'm like, well, but think about it.
Like, you're like, you're muzzled.
You can't.
And this was then.
Things have definitely changed a lot since then.
And I know I can say things that maybe some people can't say just based on my skin color and my heritage, which is honestly, that's garbage.
Like, that's such a terrible thing that you should be disqualified from free thought based on, you know, inherent attributes that you have no control over.
Is there a reaction that you can describe that you get when you don't agree with this type of theology, let's call it?
Well, I try to not, well, this is kind of tongue-in-cheek, but I try to just like pull questions out of people.
So, you know, I will just, I'll ask and allow them to get there.
But it's really just about, you know, as a Christian, I'm supposed to be a witness to the Lord.
So I'm supposed to love people that everybody, especially people that don't know him.
And, you know, it's interesting, like, for example, the interview that we did with that Talakum Tom fellow, he prefaced his whole spiel on the idea that because of this ideology that he subscribes to, the, you know, the global change, climate change, he's not going to have grandchildren because his son doesn't feel like it's the responsible thing to do to bring children into the world because he feels like the world's going to end in five years, right?
Of course.
So now, because of that hurt and because of that pain, he feels like the only moral and just thing that he can do is protest in the way that he's protesting.
So it really, like, you know, I believe, you know, everything that we do as humans is either motivated by fear or love.
So it doesn't, asking questions, you can figure out pretty quick where people are acting from.
And, you know, so that's all I really try to do.
But I think I'm afforded the opportunity to ask certain questions that others can't, because you can't say that I don't love black people or I don't love Asian people or this or that.
Like, what are you talking about?
So I think that's actually a bit of a mission statement for Drea and I when we're in the field.
Like often, you know, if we're going to a protest, and I will, people are like a protest and counter-protest, because I dress like maybe a counter-protest to like a typical conservative, you know, or a freedom protest or what have you, I'm able to have, like, people aren't as guarded around me, so I'm able to have honest conversations.
And then when you have honest conversations with people, you can often, they're not guarded, so that you can often like get them to realize what you're saying without having to yell them just by asking them.
You know, and it's actually like been quite a powerful tool.
So I guess I'm grateful in that way, but it's strange.
Yeah, you can notice it in the videos, especially with Drea, how she's a lot nicer than I am.
She's a lot more patient than I am.
And then when people try to, you know, say she's got a certain angle or she wants to represent it some way, you guys don't actually do that at all.
Whereas I might go out there and I might start arguing with somebody.
A Storm of Faith00:03:54
You guys are there literally just to see what's going on.
So I think it throws a lot of curve walls.
Now, you mentioned being able to say certain things that may not be afforded to other people.
That is not what happened to you before, is it?
Now are we able to show the video that you say got you canceled?
Sure.
And we can go ahead and throw to that now.
With so many protests happening around the world against intolerance, a homophobic sermon that took place in the heart of Vancouver's gay community last night sparked a strong response.
CTV's Panadaflos reports on a scene that enraged a neighborhood.
You guys come down here to spit that shit here?
Yeah.
With everything that's going on in the world.
At the height of the conflict, tempers were running high.
You want to describe to people what happened there?
And for lack of a better term, it's getting canceled.
And just tell us how the backlash was from this and what actually happened.
Sure.
I guess to give context to that clip, I have to kind of let people know about what happened leading up to that.
So if you rewind to, I guess, June of last year, it was the beginning of the pandemic.
Everybody was freaking out.
Everybody thought that they were going to die.
Everybody thought that the world was ending.
And something that I really noticed, at least for myself, and other Christians, or people of faith that I know and that I love, there was a sense of calm because for me, I was like, okay, well, the world's shut down.
I have an opportunity to work on my faith.
I have an opportunity to work on my relationships, chase passions.
And it was actually a real blessing.
I felt like my relationship with the Lord got a lot stronger.
And I was carrying the peace that surpasses all understanding.
I was carrying that with me.
And some family members were like, why aren't you freaking out?
And then I was like, wow.
I think about, there's a parable in, I think it's Mark, I believe it's Mark 4.
And please don't flame me on the internet if I'm misquoting, but I believe it's Mark 4.
It's a parable about Jesus crossing the water.
And he's got all the disciples with him.
And Jesus is in the hull.
And there's a big storm that comes up over the water.
And the disciples are starting to freak out.
They're like, you know, Lord, Lord, come help us because we're going to die on this boat.
And so, you know, Jesus says to his disciples, you have no faith.
And he rebukes the storm and it's all calm and they make it across and it's all good.
But something that always stood out to me about that passage is it says that there was other boats with them on the water.
So there were other boats that were also in the middle of the storm that were freaking out.
And then this man comes up from the hull, rebukes the storm, and then everything's good.
So I feel like that's, in a lot of ways, it's like a metaphor for what it means to carry the peace and presence of God with you.
People should be able to, like, you know, they know us by our love for one another.
So people should be able to see you and realize there's something different about you.
And it's, you know, it's love and peace and joy.
They're enticing things for folks.
So, you know, by that metric, I felt responsible.
Like, okay, you know, I've always, not that I was like lukewarm, but you know, I had reserved myself for the thinking that God gave us all free will, and I don't know how God's working, and I don't know how God's working on certain people.
So I just have to let go and let God and go about my day.
But I saw for the first time in my life a very practical and prudent need for the peace of God for people that didn't know him.
So this is something that the Lord was really putting on my heart.
I was having opportunities to have conversations with friends that I've wrestled with this like my whole life, that are staunch atheists, that because of fear, was bringing them to a place of humility where they're like, wait, maybe there's something more than all I can see with my eyes.
God Loves on the Toronto Streets00:14:54
So it was just such a rewarding and amazing experience.
So it led to, you know, my best friend giving his life to the Lord.
And he's like a recovering heroin addict.
And it was like, that was such a beautiful moment.
So there's a st there's a so now I'll lead, that's the preface of what was going on last year.
I'll lead into what led me to the street that day.
There's a street preacher from Toronto called Dore Love.
He's the one who gets been arrested frequently.
Is that the same thing?
Most recently he's been arrested in Vancouver and this incident was before the arrest.
But something that I really respect about the culture, not just Dore specifically, but the culture about Toronto is like in front of Eaton's center.
It's a bit of, there's like, you know, there's Imans, there's rabbis, there's preachers, there's atheists, there's Spider-Man, there's Darth Mayor.
Yeah, there are people playing the drums.
Yeah, and it's like it's freedom of speech and conversation is encouraged.
So something that I like, I started watching Dore's videos and something, and other evangelists and whatever else.
And something that really stuck out to me was it wasn't necessarily, he was talking with people from all walks of life who like clearly hate his guts, right?
But the thing that stuck out to me was that it wasn't about his conversation necessarily with the person that he was talking to like this.
It was about the 20 people that were watching.
Because you could see minds being changed.
You could see like light bulbs going off.
And I was like, wow, that's like a really interesting thing.
So I watched a few of his videos.
I didn't think anything of it.
And I shot him a message over email.
I was like, hey, man, if you're ever in Vancouver, I want to come watch.
And that was it, you know.
So fast forward to a few months later, literally the day that my best friend gives his life to the Lord, I get a random email from Doré.
And he's like, hey, we're going to be at Maine and Hastings praying for folks and handing out water bottles.
Come through.
And I'm just like, whoa, that's like crazy timing, you know?
And I was encouraged by that because, you know, and not to criticize or to stumble a brother, but I was very encouraged by the fact that this man isn't from Vancouver and the first place that he's going to go is to Maine Hastings.
And for those of you on the East Coast who don't know, like the downtown East Side in Vancouver is notorious for prostitution, drug overdose.
It's like North America's capital for heroin addiction and crack cocaine addiction.
And it's just, it's like a sea.
Maybe you can throw it to something just so people can kind of understand the scope of it.
But it's world class.
So I was, you know, I felt a personal conviction, and I don't mean to project this on anybody else, but I felt as a personal conviction that as lovers of God and children of God, we could be doing more to help people that don't know him.
So I was like, yeah, dope.
The first thing you're going to do is go to the downtown east side and pray for people and hand out food and water.
I was like, that's amazing.
Like, I want to go.
So I went, and there wasn't much preaching.
And, you know, it was like, it was like really productive.
You know, there's a couple people that were angry because whenever you talk about anything, nothing makes people upset like, you know, Jesus loves you.
Other than maybe like, I love Trump or something.
That's like a second, but seriously, nothing upsets people beyond the point of reason.
Like God loves you, you know?
But at the same time, it's like an interesting juxtaposition because in that community, They're so used to being marginalized that just having like just going up to someone looking him in the eye and say hey I see you What's up?
How are you doing is like such a.
It's like a life-giving moment because people these people are looked over, They're forgotten, you know.
So that was like a really amazing experience.
And at the end of the night I noticed this one guy who was around my age leather jacket, blue hair, had a really massive backpack on and uh, I noticed like I was talking to one of Dorre's preacher guys and we were having a conversation and I noticed like he was like he kept like very attentively looking at us and listening to us, but then whenever I made eye contact with him he would look like oh, kind of like you know, like very like afraid, kind of like keep himself.
So like I went up to him and I was just like hey dude, like what's up, how you doing?
And he was like honestly man, like I'm not doing good, you know, I came out here from Toronto.
I'm addicted to crystal meth.
I came out with my girlfriend she lives on the island.
She left me.
I'm out here by my own, on my own, and I was walking I have a hundred pound backpack on and it's killing me and I walked two blocks past Main and Hastings but something told me to just turn around.
So I turned around and I've been sitting here all day and I'm listening to you guys talk about Jesus and I've never heard anybody talk about Jesus in that way before and I'm just, I'm just compelled and I'm like that's really cool.
I'm like you know, and I'm like okay, well in my mind I'm like well, you know, my best friend just gave his life to God.
I'm out here in the street right now like the Holy Spirit's on a roll right now.
So like can I pray for you?
And he's like you know what I would like, really love that.
So, you know, we laid hands on him, I prayed for him and his countenance just was like a complete 180 man.
Like he just started crying like tears of joy.
He's like you guys are the first people seeing me, seeing me smile in like a year.
And he's like this is so crazy.
But when I was at the BC, like the ferries terminal, someone came.
I had no money.
Someone came up to a stranger, came up to me.
I wasn't even panhandling.
A stranger came up to me and gave me 50 bucks and he was like ah, but I almost didn't want it because I didn't want to use again.
But you know, I'm still holding on to it.
And he's like, and another crazy thing that just happened, I got a message on my on Facebook from a friend from high school haven't talked to in three years.
She heard I'm in the downtown East Side and she said she's renting a car right now to come pick me up.
I'm like man, that's the Lord, that's how God works, for sure.
Like all of these things are far too serendipitous to just be like it's coincidence.
So I'm like okay, it was the end of the night and everyone's packing up.
And I'm like whoa, I can't leave this.
He's told me his ride's coming.
I believe him, I'm taking him at his word and you know that I can't leave him on the street.
So I'm like, where can, where can we go?
It was like three in the morning.
I'm like okay, there's a TIM Hortons that's like two blocks away.
They have Wi-Fi so that you know he can be in touch with his friend.
He can, he can be hooked up to power.
You know he's, it's good.
So we go, we walk over there and of course they're closed because of Covid.
So i'm like, what do we do?
What would I do this guy?
So I was like ah, what would Jesus, do you know?
That's like what I try to think, and what Jesus did is he liked to have conversations with people at the kitchen table.
He liked to break bread with folks, right?
So i'm like, when's the last time that you had a good meal, man?
He's like dude, i'm a meth head, like I don't eat, dude.
Like, you know?
And he was like, you know, I could, he was joking, and, like, you know, so there's an Indian restaurant called the Dosa Factory, and they're open, like, I think they're open till like 4 or 5 a.m. or something like that.
Shout out to Dosa Factory.
Shout out to Dosa Factory.
So we went to the Dosa Factory, and it was amazing, man, because it's just like, again, it's that dignified, there's that dignity when you look someone in the eye and you actually ask them how they're doing like you care because you do care.
And people can sense that, right?
So there's just like he starts talking to me about how, you know, he was in jail for six months for like this in for weed for this like sting operation that he took the fall for.
And his dad like served in Iraq in the first Gulf War and he's always had this like hard heart towards him and they don't have a very good relationship.
And the only time he's ever seen his dad cry is when he was shipped off to jail and he's talking about how like his grandpa Frank served in Ireland for the IRA and he's like a hardcore Christian and he's just like here I remind him of his grandpa because the way we both talk about God and he can't wait to get home so he can like reconcile with his dad and talk about the Lord with his grandpa and all this.
And it's just like he's completely done a 180.
It's like it's a miracle, you know.
And I'm just like, wow, this is crazy.
So we closed down the restaurant.
You know, it's six in the morning or something like that at this point.
And I had some roommates at the time, very scared of COVID, like very, very scared of COVID.
But I'm like, I can't leave him on the street.
Like anything could happen to him between now and whenever his friend comes, right?
So I'm like, okay, I'll tell you what, man.
Like, you can come to my house, sleep on the couch, be very quiet because my roommate has a dog.
And if they come down here and see you on the couch, they're going to freak.
They're going to call the cops or something.
It's going to be a mess.
But I'm going to leave you with some, you know, some food and some water and a charger or whatever.
And just please let yourself out in the morning when your friend comes.
He's like, yeah, bro, no problem.
So I woke up the next morning and he was gone.
So I just assumed that everything worked out.
I didn't think, you know, I didn't think too much of it.
So then, you know, I called Dore.
I was like, dude, you will not believe what happened last night.
Remember that dude that we met on the stairs?
Like, he gave his life to God and he's currently on his way back to Toronto to make things right with his family.
And he's like, man, that's amazing.
I was like, you're telling me, like, that was one of the craziest experiences of my life, you know?
And he's like, well, we're going out to do it again.
We're going to the West End.
You want to come?
And I'm just like, man, if it's anything like it was the night before, I definitely want to come.
So sure enough, I went.
And it was mostly an overwhelmingly good experience, mostly positive.
Because if you meet somebody who thinks that you hate them, and I mean, for example, like the West End in Vancouver is a notoriously gay community.
But if, you know, a lot of these people have anger towards Christians and have anger towards the church because they've been hurt by the church or because they think that the church hates them or God hates them, right?
So when you go up to them, like, hey, man, hope you're having a good day.
God loves you.
It's so disarming because they're like, first they're like, what are you doing here?
So they're guarded.
And then it's like, hey, man, God loves you.
They're like, really?
They think it's an insult almost?
Well, no, it's like a surprising revelation.
They're like, God loves me?
And that's a very profound, that's a profound understanding, right?
Because it's like, anyways, I got, yeah, it's a heavy realization.
Because what do you, it's like the parable of, you know, turning the other cheek.
The reason why you're supposed to turn the other cheek to someone who strikes you is not because, you know, we're just supposed to be submissive and we're supposed to take a beating.
It's so that you can act as a mirror and you can reveal your accuser's depravity to themselves.
So, you know, if you tell someone who hates you because they think you hate them, I love you, God loves you, what do you do with that, right?
So it was like a really positive experience.
It was a really amazing day.
And, you know, it was the cops came because obviously some people are not happy to see us there.
But, you know, this is not represented properly in the article at all.
I'm talking about a very small minority of people who were not happy to see us there.
And the cops came and they're like, actually, I don't hear anything hateful or wrong with this message.
You guys can stay.
But if it starts to become dangerous for you or for anyone else, we have to break it up.
So as the day went on, The guy with the red hair that's in the clip, I've actually known him for five years.
I didn't know that he's gay or belongs to that community.
So I think when he saw me, there was a bit of shame.
Like he felt like I had outed him.
So he reacted in a very angry way.
And then that's the clip that was brought up on the news.
But it's interesting.
There was no talk of sexuality or homosexuality or hellfire or anything like that.
The only time that was brought up was by a reporter from CTV who happened to be present, who is also a member, who I found out subsequently is a member of the Vancouver Greek Orthodox Church.
So she knows scripture, right?
Whether she's a lover of Jesus and has a relationship with the Lord is one thing, but she grew up as a cultural Christian.
So she knows scripture.
And she says, you know, well, where in the Bible does it even talk about homosexuality?
I'm pretty sure that's in there.
And then Dori says, well, 1 Corinthians 6.
And the beauty about that verse that often gets taken out of context is it talks about all of these things.
Neither drunkards nor lovers of self or homosexuals, whatever will inherit the kingdom of God, blah, blah, blah.
But that's usually where people stop quoting.
But if you keep reading, it says, but that's what you were.
You've been made new.
So the beauty of that verse is like, God loves you.
You've been given a new identity.
Story of the day, what identity is, right?
But anyways, she was digging for a clip.
She got her clip of him saying that out of his mouth.
And then that became the story.
Homophobic sermon sparks outrage in the West End.
And there was no outrage sparked.
There was maybe, by the end of it, after that guy who knew me got really angry and in my face, there was maybe 10 people there maximum.
And we talked to hundreds of people that day.
And folks were honking at us from the car.
People were waving.
People were giving us hugs.
They don't show any of that on the news.
They don't show anything feel-good at all.
And then it became a national story.
They ran it two nights in a row.
And unfortunately, my face is in it, and my girlfriend's face is in it.
My girlfriend is a, well, she was a model, and she's a makeup Instagram influencer.
So between her and myself, our social media reach is larger than CTV Vancouver.
So unfortunately, if you're in any sort, well, just in life, but especially in entertainment, you can't have any sort of a success without gaining some haters along the way.
So everybody who's ever hated me, and if you do some research, it won't be that difficult to find out who the culprits were that were spreading these lies about us.
They took this as the opportunity to take pot shots at us.
So, oh, Brebner is, you know, it went from sermon on the West End to homophobic sermon on the West End.
And then when it hit Facebook, it became homophobic political protest.
And if you support, you know, Matt Brebner or Amanda Benko, you're homophobic and you support this, that, this, that.
The point I want to make about that is I could pick out probably 500 songs on my playlist that if you pull out one section of a lyric, you can say this person's racist or they're homophobic or they're anti-woman or a whole mix match of whatever, whatever.
So is the only reason why this backlash comes is because the media chooses to point it out and to blow it up to an audience that isn't exposed to this sort of stuff.
So all of a sudden, CTV Vancouver viewers who have never heard of you are all of a sudden making you known as a homophobic rapper.
And I want to put that into a question form of how does that affect your career afterwards?
Because like I said, if we're hiring five artists for a festival, you can probably find all five of them having things where you could label them as this, that, or the other.
But is it because Matt Brevner is now labeled as this in the mainstream media that we can hire him or something?
So my question is, how does that affect your career afterwards?
Why We Want to Keep Our Values00:05:03
Well, I mean, me and my girlfriend, we got completely canceled.
My former label put out a press release denouncing my homophobic actions before even talking to me.
And which label is that?
It's Urbnet on their Toronto-based label.
And, you know, I don't even, and I need this to be clear.
I don't want you guys or whoever's watching to go flood UrbNet with any sort of hate or cancellation because they're a small business and it takes a lot of, you know, my cross is not their cross.
And when the cancel mob is coming for you and you're a small business, it's kind of a scary thing.
And I especially can't expect them to defend me when they don't hold, you know, conservative values, let alone Christian values.
Yeah, but don't their other artists say probably much worse things?
Yeah, definitely.
But that's the thing.
It's like, it's a double standard, right?
Because if I talk about selling drugs or gangbanging or whatever else, getting money in illicit ways, which I've talked about in my career, it's fine.
Not only is it fine, it's celebrated.
But as soon as I say Jesus loves you, this is not even a gross oversimplification because that's what I'm about.
God saved my life and the least I can do now is let other people know.
And it's like, but you can't do that.
So what tells, I know, I understand this to be like a spiritual battle.
And I've seen it with my, because it just, it's not logical.
It doesn't make sense.
You can't rationalize it.
But yeah, as far as like the career goes, like my career was essentially completely ruined.
I basically went into hiding for a year.
I was getting, my girlfriend and I were both receiving death threats.
She's a vogue internationally published model.
She got released from all three of her agencies internationally.
And someone reached out over Instagram, and this is a global account.
This is not a Vancouver account, right?
And said, oh, one of your sales associates was caught up in some homophobic blah, And they reached out to her and said her name.
The person who reached out didn't even mention her name in it.
But they reached out and like, oh, we can confirm that Amanda no longer works.
And they fired her when she was on a leave of absence, having nothing to do with any of this.
But they just wanted to keep it quiet and brush it under the rug.
So they literally put her identity and her safety in jeopardy, right?
So yeah, we had to move.
We haven't been working for the last year plus.
Thank God for Rebel because they've given me an opportunity to not only pay my rent and kind of recoup a little bit, but also hopefully in a form of redemption.
And something that has been really gratifying to me is that I came to this company just on the merit of my video skill set, which I acquired out of prudence of my music career.
I didn't, you know, it's awesome that now, you know, you recognize me and some folks are like, hey, well, you're a musician.
Oh, wow, you're actually like a musician.
And so it's like a little bit of a, you know, the Kinder surprise and the coin in the middle of the egg.
So like, that's cool.
But yeah, I mean, I can't, I can't, the financial loss and the career loss and the opportunity lost, that's just the beginning of it, you know, because I also lost all, I lost like 90% of my friends.
I lost a lot of family because they have to reconcile.
Family?
Yeah, man.
People have to reconcile what they saw on you or about you with how they know you for your entire life.
And if they are going to take a second to be like, hey, wait a second, this is not Matt.
I don't know him to be like this.
Now you're accountable to that position because everybody who knows me and holds a counter position or everyone who doesn't know me in their first introduction to me is that slanderous news piece, they have to stand up for you.
And unfortunately, you know, and I don't expect people to do that.
I have grace for you guys that bailed on me and you know who you are, and there's a lot of you.
But in the same sense, like all it would have taken was a couple people to be like, hey, this is not true.
And the carnage wouldn't have happened in the way that it did, you know.
But cancel culture is scary.
You know, it's like, even for, you know, I don't expect you to not be able to pay your mortgage so that you can defend me because I was out with the street preacher talking about Jesus.
You know, like that's, I didn't, you didn't ask for that.
You know, and, but, you know, I'm like grateful for the folks who did and who have like fought for me in private and small conversations.
But it's like seeing the carnage, it's like, yeah, I don't want to lose my job.
I don't want to lose my livelihood, my relationships.
So, yeah, it's been disappointing, but it's also been like an eye-opener to like, I feel like the conversations and the situations that freedom-loving folks are experiencing now with their friendships and their families.
I went through this a year ago already.
I'm already untethered, unyoked to the fear and the crap.
So, in that way, I'm like grateful because I feel like I got to go through this in a very extreme way on my own, which allowed me to like not take solace and comfort in other people or quick opportunities, but really, okay, strip everything off.
Who am I?
What do I stand for?
And how do I want to rebuild my life?
So, in that way, it's actually been a gift.
Behind the Paywall00:05:03
And I want to get into your new music, but before we do, because we can't do it for free, you guys, I'm sorry.
We're going to move behind the paywall.
Rebelnewsplus.com.
You can sign up for $8 a month or $80 per year.
And that way, you'll save two months, really three, because there's a free trial at the beginning.
So, RebelNewsPlus.com with Matt Brevner.
But before we go behind it, tell them where to find your music.
You can find me on Spotify, Brevner.
If you Google Brevner, Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, all these things will pop up.
B-R-E-V-N-E-R.
And I'm dropping a new album called In Jesus' Name sometime this summer.
All right, so we're going to get to some new stuff behind the paywall.
Rebelnewsplus.com, you guys.
I'll keep this part pretty short.
Okay, yeah.
We're just going to promote your new music.
That's okay.
No, we're still under an hour, so it's fine.
So we're behind, we're good?
So we're behind the paywall now, Matt.
You want to release new music?
You're going to.
You've given us the blessing of previewing some of it.
I can confirm it is fire.
What is fueling the new style?
Is there a new style?
Is there something else fueling it now?
Is it based on your past?
Just a couple minutes on that.
Sure, yeah.
I have a conviction about I just want to make art that's up to my worldly standards, but for the kingdom and for a righteous cause.
So, you know, I feel like if it's art for God, it shouldn't be less than what the world's putting out.
It should be even greater.
So I just want to bring my tastes.
I don't have too much experience listening to Christian hip-hop or conservative hip-hop or anything else.
I just want to bring what I love to do to the art form and to the genre.
And hopefully, some people are inspired by it.
Hopefully, some people relate to it.
But it's got to, you know, and you listen to like good hip-hop and you can see that kind of like, oh, yeah.
That is the head motion I made.
It was the stank face.
I agree.
So it has to pass a stank.
The stank face does.
Now, are you looking forward to doing anything with anybody?
We talked briefly about Tom McDonald, who's somebody who you know personally.
What's it been like to see somebody who you know personally?
I mean, you knew a lot of other guys.
You knew Mad Child of them.
They didn't go through this pathway of most resistance, I would say, that Tom McDonald has gone through.
Does that give you a sense of hope, a sense of pride for what's to come for you?
Because now there is.
I've interviewed Bryson Gray.
I've interviewed Anomaly.
Does this give you a hope and a sense of direction for what you want to do?
I gotta say, Tom's one of my oldest friends in the music industry.
And he is one of the, and I mean on, no, not even one of the, outside of like my Christian friends, he is the only person that reached out to me, was on the phone with me every day, talking about how can we get over this?
It's gonna be okay.
Like he actually, you know, and that says a lot to his character.
In his own way, he's had, you know, a baptism by fire every week.
So he gets it.
But for him to, you know, humble himself, reach out to an old friend and be like, my heart hurts for what's happening to you was just so cool because like there's guys with a 20th of the platform that Tom and Nova have that not only didn't reach out but were quick to like trash me online for their own gain.
So yeah, I mean wherever the Lord wants me, the Lord's going to place me.
I'm not doing this so that I can necessarily do it for my glory.
Like I really just, I love to make art and if people benefit from it, that's awesome.
But really, it's just that whole thing was a testament to Tom's character and our friendship.
And for that, like I'm super grateful.
So you want to set up your new music video, which I believe is going to be exclusive here first, and then we'll get it out to the rest of the world.
What was it like to finally, you know, get in front of the camera to film a video again and, you know, feel what you probably haven't felt in a couple years?
Do you want to set that up?
Sure, yeah.
It was very, it was a frightening experience because the thing is when you get canceled, you lose all of your resources.
And as an entrepreneur, most of your resources are relationships.
So I couldn't find anyone to mix my music.
I couldn't find anyone to master my music.
I couldn't find anyone to shoot any of my videos, like could do any of my graphic design, nothing.
So literally, this song, it's called Behind Me.
My girlfriend and I shot the video.
I produced the music.
I mixed the music.
My girlfriend and I did the cover art together.
We shot it in our, you know, our little apartment in Vancouver.
And yeah, the song, I actually wrote the song before I got canceled.
So to be putting it out now is just such an amazing gift.
And to know that I'm able to put this out now from a place of confidence and joy and not from a place where I feel like I'm swinging back or fighting, it's reassuring and it's just, it's a really beautiful thing.
So I hope that it inspires some folks.
Yeah.
All right.
So we're going to throw to that Brevner on Spotify, on Instagram, on Twitter.
He's on my Spotify list.
And of course, him and Dre Humphrey are covering the whole West Coast.
You guys have watched their videos.
You've loved them.
There was that recent wedding video you guys did.
I love the cinematography, even the crazy environmentalist protest.
My words, not yours.
So keep watching the West Coast feed of Rebel News because this is the production team you've got behind you and it's really good.