Lawrence and Dwayne Brass together make up Braided Waves. (Braided Waves/Facebook)

By Julia Lovett-Squires

Braided Waves

Musical duo celebrate 10 years of sobriety, look to inspire and help others

Feb 20, 2024 | 2:00 PM

Two brothers are making ‘Braided Waves’ by celebrating their 10 years of sobriety together and are looking for a fresh start.

The duo, made up of Lawrence and Dwayne Brass based out of Saskatoon, began their musical journey about 14 years ago after seeing their friends dabbling in the art.

“We thought ‘Hey, let’s give this a try,’ we started pursuing it,” said Lawrence who goes by the stage name 4VM Waves.

Although Dwayne marked 10 years in early January, the two will celebrate their decade milestone on February. 21 – the official day of sobriety for Lawrence.

The brothers, originally from The Key First Nation, were creating music as a hobby before a friend suggested they go on the road and get involved with communities.

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“I was actually still drinking then, and I was like, ‘Nah, I don’t want to do this’ and actually my brother was about two months’ sober,” Lawrence said.

“We came into agreement [to] try the sober thing for a while, see what it’s like and then here we are 10 years later.”

Their experience has led them down a path they never expected and now the musicians have turned the lessons they’ve learned into a motivational outlet.

“Since then, we’ve travelled to about…170 places across Canada and parts of the (United States) to basically share our music, speak to kids about the effects of addictions,” he said.

“We are now, as of this year, starting to do more things with mental health, suicide, bullying.”

Lawrence explained that throughout their travels, they have met people throughout local indigenous communities who are struggling, and they’ve chosen to use their art as a healing balm.

“We’re trying to angle (their music) a little more towards helping people, also with sharing our music,’ he said, noting they’ve written in everything from pop to rap to hip hop and beyond.

“I don’t want to say that I’m one genre, I don’t think I ever will say that, we just like to play with all sounds,” said Lawrence.

Inspiring others to live a cleaner path happened by accident. Lawrence said the decision to live sober wasn’t supposed to be, but they made a conscious choice, and it changed their lives.

“We gave it a try and we just realized that ‘Hey, we’re not living a really good life, we’re not living to our full potential,’” he said.

“It’s always a learning process along the way.”

In their process to live clean, their musicality changed too.

“When we’d make music before, we basically would just find words to rhyme,” said Lawrence.

“When we did become sober, we started really thinking about the way we can write songs and how we can craft them together.”

As the passion grew, they began focusing on storytelling regardless of the genre they’re working in.

“It always had to explain something in some way,” said the musician, noting there is always a strategy in their creation.

At the moment, they have a treasure-trove of new material they plan to release over the coming weeks and the subjects of their music range from Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, residential schools and the homeless to youth empowerment and love songs.

When Lawrence thinks about the music yet to drop, he’s excited. In the meantime, they continue their supportive collaboration.

“It’s definitely brought us closer. It’s brought our friends closer; the music is such a powerful tool,” he said.

“Mental health-wise for me, it’s been a beautiful thing.”

To learn more about the duo, visit: https://braidedwaves.ca/.

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julia.lovettsquires@pattisonmedia.com

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