At a time when rappers tend to be misogynistic, hedonistic, materialistic and stupid, Sage Francis is, in his own words, "different, in a different way." The 27-year-old battle rapper/slam poet/emcee defies nearly every expectation of artists of his ilk, relentlessly carving his private cranny in the genre and, in the process, personally redefining hip-hop music.
Hiling not from one of America's despairing inner cities but from Providence, Rhode Island, Paul Francis did not grow up like your average rapper.
"I come from a really proper family, a really Puritanical one even," he said. "We were very respectful. I still don't swear in front of my mom."
Francis' background equips him to shun the I-have-a-bigger-gun-than-you lyricism of modern rap music, and instead craft some of the most heart-wrenching, caustically critical and unflinchingly personal rhymes in the genre. On 2002's "Personal Journals," Francis spits about tattooing and self-mutilation ("Inherited Scars"), orphans ("Runaways"), and other weighty subjects, and does so in about a dozen different styles.
"Any Port," from 2003's "Non-Prophets" collaboration with producer Joe Beats, follows a standard verse-chorus-verse structure. On the other hand, the phenomenal "Smoke and Mirrors" from "Journals" showcases the former freestyle champion's dexterous wordplay in a sprawling, unfettered harangue of desperately hollow women. "I'm so synthetic / I like the smell of coke, get it? / I powder my nose / power to hoes who pound on a hose / while playing in a pound of snow," he sarcastically flows. Not only does Francis rhyme in an assortment of styles, but his delivery further reflects his theme of variety and dissimilarity.
Pulling from his background as a spoken-word artist and slam poet, Francis shifts volume and tempo ("changes up" in his own words) from verse to verse, even line to line, frantically. On "Time of my Life" from "Still SickUrine Trouble," the second installment in his series of tour-only oddity compilations, Francis seamlessly cycles a speaking voice, a conventional rapping cadence, and a spastic, Protean bark, manically crescendoing and diminishing throughout.
Background
This flow wayward, unconventional and unpredictable, mirrors the rapper's career thus far. He began rapping at age eight. By 14, he was performing and battling Providence-area emcees. At 18, he released his first official demo tape, and at 19, he released a 12" with producer Joe Beats, the precursor to the "Non-Prophets" LP.
A 21, Francis won the Superbowl MC Battle and the Scribble Jam freestyle title, the Nobel Prize of underground hip-hop. After accumulating such cred, Francis hit the road, and in true DIY style, managed his own tour, selling copies of his "Sick of Waiting..." compilation series along the way.
After slaving away by himself to propagate his commercially untouchable brand of music, Francis finally released "Personal Journals" in 2002 with arty Oakland label Anticon. When Ludacris was in his shallow, self-aggrandizing prime, Sage Francis reached into his own chest, tore out his heart, and spiked in on a piece of paper, and people loved it.
"When that album came out, it just outsold everyone's expectations. It was just crazy," Francis says.
The album is, in part, a backpacker's delight, featuring production from indie hip-hop nobility like Sixtoo and snippets of Francis's spoken-word performances that won him emcee titles and Internet fans.
The true success of "Journals," how-ever, lay in its widespread appeal. Francis' intimate, confessional songwriting allowed the album to transcend the exclusive circles of white kids with headphones and wristbands, and appeal to a broader audience. "[Listeners], I guess, identify with it. They've been through their own shit and they have their own appreciation for people who are able to express those things that they are not getting anywhere else."
Switching labels
The next year, Francis and Joe Beats resurrected their Non-Prophets project to release 2003's "Hope" on flyweight English label Lex Records. In the same year that 50 Cent was dying to get rich, Francis parted with Anticon, the label that had moved more copies of his album than he could have imagined.
Purely, Francis said, "for s-ts and giggles. I was just curious as to what [Lex] would do with an album."
Though the fledgling label proved unable to distribute the record -"It was the worst business decision I've ever made," said Francis - those who found a copy heard a slight distancing from "Journals." Eschewing the short, chorus-less songs, intermittent live clips, and general eccentricity of his debut, "Hope" harkens back to the hip-hop of yesteryear. Joe's beats are sample-fed, snare-heavy, and synth-laden, and Francis' vocals are simpler and lighter, evoking nostalgia for A Tribe Called Quest and the Beastie Boys.
But even in a concept album centered on fidelity to the past, Francis managed to incorporate the acrimonious vitriol and throbbing emotion upon which he built his name, while still staying in character. He both lambastes modern hip-hop ("Das EFX rocked that Band-Aid ten years before Nelly did!" he shouts on "Mainstream 307") and struggles to define life over Beat's wailing trumpets on the disarming "The Cure."
Exposing his music to the masses
This year, he played music label chairs again, winding up this time at San Francisco-based punk label Epitaph.
"They get a lot done, and they're independent still," Francis said of his new label. "They support me and my music and my career and that's all I care about. And the fact that they are able to put out my album to more people... is really important to me."
The album he is referring to is 2005's "A Healthy Distrust," his Epitaph debut. If "Hope" is Francis reminiscing about the past, "Distrust" is him ruminating on the future. While the subject matter (male machismo, organized religion, modern music) sits comfortably next to Francis' previous work, the beats are robotic, dense and almost totally inorganic, suggesting that he's heading in a more experimental direction.
"Jah Didn't Kill Johnny," for example, is a complete departure for Francis, both musically and lyrically. With no production, long-time friend Tom Inhaler lazily strums an acoustic guitar while Francis ironically rambles "Holler at ya boy," and it sounds so bad that you can only assume it's an avant-garde rapper trick.
Still, when Francis connects on "Distrust," it is stunning. His delivery has cleaned up significantly, and tracks like the labyrinthine "Escape Artist" rank among the finest of his career.
Upon the release of "Distrust," devoted fans wondered if Francis' new progressive direction would come at the detriment of his roots. Would the adroit wordsmith and electrifying performer forsake his showman's past? Would Francis' thrilling live shows, perfected by over a decade on the stage, take a backseat to some weird kind of ultramodern experimentation?
Absolutely not. On Oct. 6, Sage Francis brought The Roxy faithful to their collective knees with a truly remarkable performance and summarily dismissed fears that the performer of old was no more.
God of the Stage and Microphone Prophet
In the interview, Paul Francis seemed a bit unnerved. His leg was convulsing, he struggled to make eye contact, and he seemed generally nervous and uncomfortable. All that changed when the show began. The house music started and he immediately became Sage Francis, God of The Stage and Microphone Prophet.
On songs like "Inherited Scars" and "Escape Artist," every stinging syllable was somehow crisp and totally audible. Watching him switch from Indy Car-flow to unchained, saliva-showering spit is even more impressive than hearing it on the album. Technically speaking, Francis' lifetime of practice serves him excellently in a live setting, but where his experience is best applied is in the more subtle aspects of performance.
He has a gift for igniting and then controlling a crowd. His vehement rhythmic gesticulations during songs are enthralling, but never exhaust the audience or seem unnatural. Between songs, he kept the crowd stoked with whispered death threats for the Commander-in-Chief, jaw-dropping spoken-word vignettes, and heads and heads of broccoli inexplicably hurled into the throng. He immediately ensnared the crowd and, except for a few exceptions (the dreadful "Sea Lion"), held them for two hours.
Over the years, Francis has also learned how to perform to both first-time audience members and groupies. The indie kid with the trucker hat standing next to me, for whom Oct. 6 was his seventh Francis show, and I, for whom it was the first, were equally surprised and delighted when he grafted the vocals to "Time of My Life" over "Product Placement," and when he performed a diss rap to Jay-Z over "99 Problems" ("I like 99 rappers, but Jay-Z ain't one"), something so taboo in the hip-hop world it's akin to incest.
But Sage Francis is different: different from other poets, different from other rappers, different from his stage persona. He adheres to precious few of hip-hop's rules, and it's a very good thing. If he bucks enough of hip-hop's conventions about lyrical content, performance, career trajectory, personality, and pretty much everything else, he just might pry the future of the fallen genre from the hands of those beneath him and ultimately save it.
