No one does the dangerously verbose, on edge frustrated, barely controlled rage like US hip hop artist Sage Francis. There’ an intensity to his personality that he expresses via a precision in his words and a rising volume towards the end of his phrases. And for the listener it’s absolutely addictive because the anger is linked to intellect. It’s possible he learned it early on via the battles he entered and occasionally won, where he would choose his words for maximum impact, dancing around his opponent, encircling and finally dispatching them. Check out Still Sick…Urine Trouble (2000) for a bit of an idea. His flows are incredible, the words really do move around, on and off the beat, they speed up and slow down, they operate musically, a melody line to the beats. It should be chaos, but it’s not, it’s precise and his words are imbued with meaning. He seems to have a unique ability to move between dictating a tale, offering conversational asides, adopting multiple personas, and telling us what’s going inside him as he tells you what’s in the room, almost like he’ reading from a novel. My favourite line on his latest, more personal, less socio political album (as opposed to 2005′ A Healthy Distrust) emphasises his literary affinity. “She dangled that carrot and then asked ‘what would Bukowski do?’ Oh, don’ go there. He’ll make you his mom then completely lie about it in a book later on.” This is from Got Up This morning, a sort of cotton pickin blues outing with mouth harp and a beat courtesy of Buck 65. This album is filled with these kinds of nuggets, which you can dig for once you’ve exhausted his incredible flows. Which may explain why musically it doesn’ feel like a radical departure from the A Healthy Distrust template. Despite able assistance from the likes of Odd Nosdam, Alias, and Sixtoo amongst others, the density of Sage’ verbal barrage seems to require a certain musical simplicity, the depth you’ll find in his incredible word plays.
Bob Baker Fish
