Snez is the artist name of Ezra Mendel, a hip hop artist from the Annapolis Valley, NS. Snez‘s versatile fusion of elements from rock and pop with hip hop and rap are key aspects of his style. As a young teen, he dropped his first two singles which immediately garnered attention in his home town and would be asked to freestyle at parties, leading to being referred to as the “Jewish kid who can actually rap.” He is currently building his local and online audience and working on his first full-length release.

Snez exudes a chameleon-type prowess of musical artistry, showcasing many different styles of hip-hop that heavily emphasizes lyrical ability, cadence and delivery. He strives to combine elements from different genres like rock, pop-punk and country. Snez shares similarities with SonReal, Mac Miller, Logic and Futuristic. Versatility is a key factor to his craft and this encapsulates his identity as a creative.

The inspiration for new single, “Never Enough,” comes from Snez‘s regular inner back-and-forth dialogue about his struggle with substance abuse, pride, overthinking and self-worth. He also opted out of working with a professional producer to record, mix and master the track themselves to add a personal and unpolished feel to the raw lyrics.

1. Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically? 

I have been working on this song as sort of a back-burner project for about a year now, but recently got the inspiration to finish it after a careless mistake led me to fall back into an old routine. 

I believe that the self-questioning nature of the lyrics could be validating to someone struggling with substance abuse, pride, overthinking or self-worth. While writing the lyrics for Never Enough I felt that this inner dialogue could be visually represented in a cool way, so I knew there had to be a video to go with it. 

Self-questioning nature of the lyrics

2. What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)? 

For quite some time I struggled with substance abuse issues, and I found it interesting that even when I got sober I had these two conflicting instincts, or personalities around whether I could stay clean or keep using. I wanted this video to visually represent that fight for control, and how easy it is to fall back into old patterns. 

3. What was the process of making this video?

I was planning a single release a few years ago while in high school and I heard from a friend that there was a kid at school who had video editing skills, so I hit him up and we made a music video. I looked super awkward on camera, neither of us had any idea what we were doing while filming, and the whole video was shot behind a local Canadian Tire, but the editing was fantastic. Shoutout to Josh Cummins (@jc_inc__ on Instagram). When I decided I wanted to shoot a video for the new single Never Enough I knew that I wanted Josh to edit the video. I learned after contacting him that he was in film school and had been working on his skills, so I figured what the hell, he killed it with the last one, so why not have him shoot, direct, and edit?

After talking with Josh about the sentiments around the lyrics for the song, he came up with the idea to have me turn blue to represent the fight for control, and I was sold. It fits the vibe of the song, and a line in the hook is “I’m feeling blue again,” so it just made sense. 

We shot the whole video in a day (which was more than enough time spent covered in blue paint, thank you very much) with the help of my girlfriend who stars in the video as the black-eyed demon lady, and my friends, who starred in a couple