Sage Francis is a champion battle rapper, but the dude makes shitty CDs. Maybe that’s because battling — which requires gimmicky quips, passionately spun — is a different skill set. Imagine hearing this lyric, from the track “Good Fashion,” at a rap battle: “Clowns are playing Russian roulette with paint guns/They run in place and call it the human race.” Hell, you would stand up and cheer.
Problem is, on wax — where listeners have time to really tear apart the words — Francis’ lyrics lack depth. This is why Human the Death Dance, Francis’ second disc for Epitaph, resembles a hoochie mama who looks like a 10 from afar, but up close is clearly a butterface. Almost every line sounds profound before you’ve processed it: “I’ve seen a wealthy man melt into the snow and blow his credit on a decongestant,” and “Toe tags get caught in my teeth ’cause my foot is in my mouth.” So . . . he’s dead?
But songs like “Got Up This Morning” and “Hell of a Year” could be fun if Francis’ whiny voice didn’t dominate the mix. The guy should take a lesson from Brother Ali and learn that socially conscious rap needn’t be a buzzkill.
This article appears in May 9-15, 2007.
I have to disagree completely. I think Sage offers a far more literary approach to the music than other artists which you might prefer, and where you consider his lyrics to fall flat, I consider them to be masterfully crafted words for simple concepts. “Got Up This Morning” for instance is just him fucking some crazy English Major. The point however, is that he is able to describe for all of us some of the emotions experienced when in a situation like that.
And I personally believe the opposite of your comment about social discourse.