Sage Francis has been escaping the real world through music
(or so he thought) from a young age. He has since earned a couple of prestigious
freestyle battle championships and a few poetry slam titles. His spoken word
performances have been featured on ESPN and ABC X-Games commercials (which paid
his rent for a year). He has also officially toured the US twice, once with
Atmosphere, once with Anticon, and has been on the road booking
one-off shows independently for a few years. To pay his rent he bootlegs his
own CD-Rs and cassettes, selling thousands upon thousands of copies with minimal
distribution and self-promotion.
When he performs, Sage captures the attention of every coffee shop chick, punk rock kid and hip-hop purist in the room because they've never seen anyone rap with such conviction. As a result, Sage has a cult following. He has developed an affinity with his devoted fan base that no marketing staff can buy. How many artists, without releasing full lengths, can headline and draw a thousand people in almost every metropolitan area in the US?
Sage Francis is both a super ego created in the shadows of Paul Francis, and a disembowled head on a stake as a warning to all who seek to find answers to the great abyss. Great people aren't born through handouts, and don't kiss ass to get to the top. Real people know that the top is the bottom, so Sage Francis speaks for all of us even if we think we disagree with him. He is an artist with an indiscribably convincing and honest quality in his work, so describing the music doesn't help. Whether it's books, rapping, reading poems, or serving ice cream, Sage Francis IS his art. To understand the music you must understand him, and to understand him is something none of us may ever accomplish...but at least we can listen to his records, and what we get out of it is for us.
