26-year-old YNG Martyr is categorically a rage artist, but he defies the rage rapper stereotype.
For starters, his reputation precedes him as a likeable, polite, and easy to work with dude. That becomes immediately clear when he jumps on Zoom for his interview, fresh off a long day shooting for this story. One of the first things he does is apologise for being precisely “two minutes late,” before introducing himself as Seaton. Sitting at home with a can of Kirin, he admits he’s tired, but still happy to push through another interview during what’s been an intense album press cycle.
That contrast carries through into his sophomore album, CHALANT, which dropped on March 27. For a rage album, the production is crowded and intense in the way you’d expect, but its subject doesn’t take itself too seriously. The album is marbled with gaming and internet references: the video for “BODYCOUNT” is reminiscent of Halo, and sees Martyr and 1900Rugrat immersed in the game. At times, the references border on absurd. When explaining the Selena Gomez bars on that same track, he reveals it came from a producer whose girlfriend was writing for Gomez at the time. The overall tone is a fun, slightly chaotic joyride, which mirrors Martyr himself. Throughout the interview, he describes himself as a nerd who’s into “geeky shit.”
It boasts a glittering contributor list, which includes producers Trenton Kyle—a pioneering figure of rage music and the man behind SoFaygo’s “OFF THE MAP”; Synthetic, another coveted producer of the genre responsible for Uzi’s “Just Wanna Rock” and a bunch of Yeat classics; and Grammy-winning engineer Teezio, who handled the mix.
Beneath the humour and lightness, there’s also a clear intensity to Martyr. It shows up most in his work ethic. At the time of the interview, he’s been pulling 12 to 14-hour days for some time, balancing the album rollout with full-time work on a video game alongside developers in the UK. He pours everything into work now—but it’s clear that it’s an outlet that both exhausts him and one that he is grateful for. His work ethic is not driven by a need to prove himself, but by something more practical. It keeps him steady.
“When it comes to anything, I will just go as hard as I can into that thing and make it happen—whatever it may be.” He speaks about a sense of restlessness he’s had since he was a kid.“I’ve always been driven to do shit… but I also think that energy—that always needing to do something—comes with this swirl of anxiety.“
That drive has roots in a darker period. When YNG Martyr was 17, he overdosed on NBOMe, a highly potent, synthetic hallucinogen which was sold to him as LSD. The experience shifted his perspective, and would find him redirecting his energy toward the pursuit of a career in music.
In a 2022 Instagram post, reflecting on that period, he wrote, “I realised that music had replaced the gap in my life that I used to try and fill with substances.” Music has since become that outlet, and responsibility now plays a major role in keeping him grounded.
“I love having that responsibility, and having to support people and that duty. Because these days, I can't go ahead and do the shit I used to do and fuck up… I’m tied to everyone else. I can’t fuck up my life too hard now.”
After alchemising that restlessness into an unrelenting drive, Martyr has become one of Australia’s biggest rap exports, with over a million followers and more than 400 million streams. He’s toured both locally and internationally, and now has the means to invest in his other interests, like building his video game.
When reflecting on his overdose, he says it ultimately forced a shift in direction. After committing fully to music, and especially after the breakout success of 2019’s “Nike Ticks,” he says he’s simply “clung on for dear life.”
Now, for the first time in years, he’s considering slowing down. Towards the end of the interview, he mentions the idea of taking a short break, possibly returning to Townsville for a few months. Perhaps for YNG Martyr, feeling comfortable finally taking a break is a sign that after years of holding on tightly to music as both purpose and survival, he may finally feel stable enough to let go, even briefly, without losing control.
Speaking to Complex Australia, YNG Martyr talks about CHALANT, the overdose that changed his life, and the power of choice.
Congratulations on the album! How are you feeling about it being out in the world?
I’m feeling good. Pretty run down, but I’m good. I’m just glad it’s out. I'm so fucking happy. I’ve been working almost full time on building a game at the moment as well as doing all the album stuff. But it’s been a lot of 12 to 14-hour days. But it’s worth it. It’s out. Whether people thing it’s shit or it’s great, I’m just like fuck it, it’s yours.
You’re working on a game. Can we talk about that for a second?
Yeah I am—it’s going really well. Unfortunately I can’t really say too much about it. But yeah, it’s a full-ass game.
Is this something you’ve always wanted to do?
Yeah! I’ve always been into video games and geeky shit. I always used to make games as a kid and fuck around. I was terrible at it. But I’m older and I have some funds from music now. I can go back and do the sick shit that I always wanted to do. It’s such an expensive process, but it’s just so cool to be like “I wanted to do this as a kid and now I’m just doing it.”
Back to the album, what was it like making it?
Yeah, I basically had that song, “BPD,” which was doing really well on TikTok and socials, and I was on a call with my manager Harry and I was like, “I love making these rage-type tracks with interesting lyricism and weird topics and geeky stuff. My manager Harry loves to do this thing where he’ll be like ‘Yeah, but you can’t repeat that success again.’ He just saying it to say it, but it runs me up a wall. At the time he said this I was in America and had just finished touring. I was relaxing and loving life—my girlfriend was there. And so I just booked a studio. I called my engineer in Australia and said, “You’ve got to come out to America now and we’re going to cook a whole album.” And we cooked that entire project in about three weeks. We just locked in at the studio. It was great.
The way you market your music has often been a topic of conversation. You’re kind of a master of it. The most known example is the time you took out 15k and paid meme pages to use your track “Nike Ticks” for meme posts on Instagram. Which eventually blew up—the YT video has over a million views. Where does that marketing ingenuity and thinking come from?
Honestly, it really just comes back to being a geek who was desperately trying to get out of a 9-5 and into the arts—just figuring out all these stupid methods of marketing.
It’s been like that my whole career: thinking about how to make something blow up, doing weird stuff. I’m a weirdo. I’m always thinking about how I can get my music out there and get it the love it deserves. Without a major label you kind of have to do this yourself.
I know that 2019, before “Nike Ticks” took off, was a really interesting—really desperate—time in your life. You’ve spoken before about giving yourself 12 months to make it as a musician. Can you talk a bit more about this time period?
I was 19 back then and a web designer. I would go to work and make sites for doctors, but I was just dead fried at work. I was going to work totally tanked. I hated my job. I hated my fucking existence. I guess at that point I was just so sick of my life. I decided to go totally sober for a full year, and I told myself that if at the end of the year I hadn’t made it, I could go back to using drugs and go hard, or I could just blow my shit clean off. October that year was when I made “Nike Ticks.”
That was also when I started pushing the song via meme pages. I took out 15,000 dollars. I just knew no one was going to push my music and that no one was coming to save me. So yeah, that’s where it all came from honestly. Just being a young hungry motherfucker. Since “Nike Ticks” blew up I’ve just held on for dear life.
You also seem to work incredibly hard. Have you always been like this?
Look, I’ve always been driven to do shit. As a kid especially. But I had an overdose when I was 17. I was definitely in dropkick territory. I was always on the go and looking at what I could do next.
I’ve been like this since I was a kid. Like I was making Minecraft servers as a kid for money. I was always bag chasing or trying to make a game or like trying to do something. But I also think that energy—that always needing to do something—comes with this swirl of anxiety. I've always been really quick to process information and take things in, but it does affect me in the sense that I get so anxious that I’m like “I need an outlet.”
And that was really dangerous in Townsville because I had no outlet for the thoughts and just being so on and being so quick. The only outlet I could get into was drugs. That was the only button. I tried meditation and shit but nothing hit like drugs. But I can’t do that shit anymore man. Too many people rely on me now and I support a lot of people. I’ve had my whole moment with drugs and I’m good on that. I don’t have to go back there.
It sounds like there’s a level of intensity to the way you approach things? A kind of ‘all-in’ way of being?
Yeah. When it comes to anything, I will just go as hard as I can into that thing and make it happen—whatever it may be. It was the same with drugs. Going hard is a great trait to have, but I have to guide myself and steer clear of some things.
I feel like no matter where you are you’re going to be confronted with all these options to do terrible shit to yourself, and, you’re going to be presented with an equal amount of opportunities to bring yourself out of that—to a degree. Obviously there are places in the world where the amount of things you have available to you to get out of those situations are very limited, but we’re really, really lucky here in Australia.
I don’t know if it’s like a human nature thing, or a spiritual or religious thing, but there always seems to be an offering of one thing or another, and you have to choose. It just feels baked into our existence to have positive and negative—it’s always there, at every turn: deciding ‘do I want this or do I want this?’ It’s an ever-present battle.
It’s been almost a decade since that overdose. How do you look back on that period now?
Well, I guess it happened in the early days of me doing music. I was reading a lot of spiritual books at the time. I think the most fucked thing about it was that at the start of the trip, I thought I’d made it as a musician. I was closing my eyes and every time my head moved I was seeing all these different scenes. I was a successful musician, which was all I’d ever wanted in my life. But then at some point it clicked and I realised “Oh no, I’ve been stuck in a loop.” I realised that what was happening was that I tried to become a musician and almost got to the pinnacle, and then I overdosed on drugs and died. And then I just had to relive it over and over. It was like this cyclical, never-ending, karma type thing. I can’t fully explain it. But it was a spiritual hell. And I was stuck repeating the same decision over and over. Even when I talk about it now, part of me is like “Am I still in that loop?”
I wonder if I’m back there, almost about to blow up, and then the world is like “Got you bitch.” It was terrifying. I would rather you had just straight up tortured me. I can’t explain it. The fear and the terror, it just scared me straight. I 100% thought I was going to die. That’s why I went running. I was just running and running and running.
How did things change for you after that experience?
After that point in my life I think I just thought to myself, “I’ve already fucked my life up, ran around naked in the streets of Townsville—I can’t really fuck up anymore. I think that’s where my yolo-ness of just like “Fuck it, I will go and get out $15k and try and become a Soundcloud rapper” came from [laughs]. I just gave no fucks about all of these pre-determined ideas about ‘what will people think if I post videos of me rapping,’ or ‘what if it doesn’t work.’ I was just like I’ve already fucked my life, I may as well just go for it.
So I guess it was really good for rebuilding and reframing everything. The way I view myself now, I lead the people around me and I'm very proud of that. I love having that responsibility, and having to support people and that duty. These days, I can't go ahead and do the shit I used to do, because there's too much weighing on it. You know what I mean? I’m tied to everyone else. I can’t fuck up my life too hard now [laughs].
Lastly, what can we expect from you in the future?
To be honest, I don’t know what to say or how to answer that. I’ve been going hard at it since 2019, and we’re in 2026 now. I just haven’t stopped for the last seven years, I haven’t had a break. I always work, and if I am relaxing, it’s like going out and supercharging that. But yeah, I don’t know, I kind of want a proper break.I don't know yet if I’m going to tour this album, I’ll just see what happens and how I’m feeling, but yeah, I think I might at some point just take a break from music, even just two or three months.
I guess overall—and I wish I was being mysterious—but genuinely, I just don't know what the universe has in store for me. I have no fucking clue and I don't know what my stupid brain is going to want me to do tomorrow.But I will oblige my soul and follow whatever it tells me to do. So we’ll see.
Follow YNG Martyr here for more. Images created by Francesca Miller-Hard and edited in Adobe Photoshop.
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide or self-harm, you can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia, or call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the US.
