SAGE FRANCIS
Personal
journals
CD, Anticon/Southern
This
record has been in my stereo at least once a day in the last weeks and I
still have the feeling that I could listen to it every single day without it
getting boring. Sage Francis and his friends, all of whom took part somehow
in creating this record, made a very personal rap-record, with understated,
grooving beats and a dynamic flow through the whole thing, that will go
right into the right-hand side of your brain, make it vibrate, then into the
left-hand side of your brain and make that swing, before it takes over your
whole body and makes you settle down and listen to and enjoy what Sage
Francis has to tell you. Even though one and a half dozen different people
provided material, from beats to music to scratches, for this record, Sage
Francis managed to produce an impressingly tight and compact record, that
has its very own style throughout, even though he will take you some long
distances. From the “bad” rapping at the beginning to the
coverversion/adaption of Bob Seeger’s “Turn the page” (mostly known
nowadays for being covered by Metallica lately) there is a lot of variety
both musically and thematically, still this is all from one source and in
one style which might be described as cool friendlyness, more
neighbourhood-lounge than rap-disco.
“Personal
Journals” is structured in an interesting and intuitively understandable
circle which is the life and experience of Sage Francis himself. Now, I
know, most rappers sing about themselves, but this is way different to
Eminem’s “without me” or “Doggy Dogg World” by you-know-who. Here
we have a rapper laying open his heart and thoughts, revealing his feelings
and even some anxieties, every notion culminating at the end in the
mantra-like refrain of “runaways” which goes: “my state is not an
ocean, not an island, not a Rhode. It’s not where you’re from, not where
you’re at, it’s where you’re going.” See, in opposition to all the
usual rap-stuff around, which deals mostly with the present or the past (how
everyone was treated bad but managed to become a rap-superstar nonetheless,
or how everyone was a super-gangsta but is a rap-superstar now, or how
everyone plainly is a rap-superstar now) Sage Francis leaves all the shit
behind, without forgetting it, but paying more interest into what is ahead
than what is now or gone by. All in all, the sentiments expressed on
“personal journals” can also be enjoyed on an intellectual level, i.e.
Sage Francis is more of a rap-poet or could we call this “Literary Rap”?
