Jae and Trey Richards turn hard labour into comedy hit ‘The Office Movers’ — with help from Drake

Trey Richards, left to right, Lucas Lopez, and Jae Richards are seen in a still image handout from the Crave comedy series "The Office Movers." THE CANADIAN PRESS/Handout - Bell Media (Mandatory Credit)

TORONTO — When Jae and Trey Richards were younger, their dad would scold them for skipping shifts at his moving company to pursue careers as content creators.

“We spent years and years, from ages 12 to 25, just working against our will, man,” says Jae.

“I’d be like, ‘I’m trying to make YouTube videos.’ He’d say, ‘No, come to work now!’”

Years later, those same videos would lead the Brampton, Ont.-born brothers to create “The Office Movers,” a Crave comedy series that’s become a local hit and even brought new customers to their father’s business.

In Season 2, premiering Friday, Drake makes an appearance, proving that Toronto’s biggest stars are fans, too.

A preview clip shows the “Hotline Bling” rapper in a tense exchange with Jae’s character, Everett Saunders.

“You guys have movers — but do you guys have guys? You know, like real guys?” Drake says.

“Yeah, they’re all guys. All my guys are outside,” Everett replies, confused.

“I just came from outside,” Drake shoots back. “I didn’t see no real guys out there.”

The show stars Jae and Trey as brothers Everett and Eric, who reluctantly take over their father’s unhinged office-moving company in Brampton — a story inspired by the duo’s real-life experience hauling furniture through the city’s office towers. The show landed an early renewal for Season 3 this week.

“My dad can’t believe it. He’s so proud of it,” says Trey, adding that fans of the series now often seek their father’s company for moving gigs.

“He’ll tell us, “Oh, I booked a big job, thanks to a guy who watches you,’” adds Jae.

“He’s not cutting us in on any percentage whatsoever.”

The brothers say “The Office Movers” has also struck a chord with working class communities in the Greater Toronto Area that seldom see themselves reflected on TV.

“What really moves me is the movers that reach out like, ‘Yo man, I feel so seen. I never thought I’d ever see moving on TV a day in my life,’” says Jae.

Season 2 finds the Saunders’ company Shazam struggling to compete with Zenithon Logistics, a ruthless corporate juggernaut bent on wiping out every small-time mover in the city. While Eric gets tempted to join the dark side, Everett resorts to increasingly desperate cash-raising efforts — including phoney insurance claims — to survive.

“A lot of the storyline is rooted in truth,” laughs Trey.

“The insurance fraud, that was a real thing. I can’t even say names because they’ll probably get arrested.”

“The Office Movers” pulses with uniquely Toronto energy, reflecting the city’s mash-up of cultures, slang and hustles. Everett and Eric work with a diverse, ragtag crew — including their Cuban stepbrother Riccardo, played by Lucas Lopez, and Muslim slacker Hassan, played by Hassan Phills — while their new landlord is Trinidadian subwoofer salesman Shamez, played by Gervail Sean Lemo.

Characters frequently speak in Toronto’s multicultural slang blending Caribbean, Somali and South Asian influences, often subtitled for laughs — a device the Richards’ first started using in their early online sketches.

Long before their Crave show, the brothers were already unofficial ambassadors of Toronto culture via their YouTube channel 4YE Media, now rebranded as Random Order Studios. Their sketches featured hyperlocal references and characters who sounded like people you’d hear on the TTC, tossing around words like “waste yute” and “marved” with unapologetic pride.

They also caught the attention of Drake, who appeared in one of their 2017 sketch series, “T-Dot Goon Scrap,” a phony advertisement for an illicit street brawl DVD. The Toronto rapper tapped the brothers earlier this year to create a Valentine’s Day skit promoting his album with PartyNextDoor, “Some Sexy Songs 4 U.”

Jae and Trey say a goal of “The Office Movers” was to capture a side of Toronto they weren’t seeing represented on Canadian TV.

“It’s an honour to put Toronto on and continue to put forward how multicultural it is here, just with the small jokes and details and the whole Toronto slang,” says Jae.

Toronto lingo grabbed global attention last year when Kendrick Lamar sprinkled it into his Drake diss track “Euphoria,” mocking the rapper in his own city’s dialect.

“It even made it all the way out there. He didn’t say the slang right, though. He didn’t apply that right,” Jae says of Kendrick’s reference.

Still, the brothers say they’re floored when they meet American fans who not only know their sketches but drop Toronto slang into conversation.

“We’ll be in the States and someone will come up to us and say, ‘Yo, mandem!’ I’m just like, ‘Wait, hold on, what the hell, where am I?’”

“It blew our minds that people were even interested, but not only that, they’re also understanding it and finding humour in it just like us,” adds Trey.

The brothers say it’s proof that culturally specific stories can still resonate widely, recalling how they were initially worried their first “T-Dot Goon Scrap” sketch would be too hyperlocal.

“We actually wanted to scrap the whole thing because we were like, ‘Who’s going to watch this? It’s so Toronto-focused,’” says Trey.

“And then everyone loved it.”

Jae says the experience taught them that authenticity, not generalization, is what makes their stories travel – a lesson they’ve hauled into “The Office Movers.”

“People want to watch something super specific and niche. They just want to be immersed in a new world.”

Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press