Sage Francis has some lyrical skill. He’s pretty real on stage too.. You heard Flagship Patriot, or something like that? How’s the new atmosphere? Mostly i don’t listen to aesop or anticon too much. Never heard of time machine.
On the real though, the underground is stagnant right now. Hip hop is dead to many people… and they miss it so.
Mos Def said it best “people talk about hiphop like its some giant living in the hillside, coming down to visit the townspeople. we are hiphop… me, you… everybody… we are hip hop, so hiphop is going where we’re going”.
If you dont find the good stuff yourself you sure as hell wont have it handed to you. If you dont participate things will surely look bleek.
Ya know what makes me shake my head…. When little kids listen to the same ol corny elementary rhymes about the same old bullshit with a wack beat made on Fruity Loops by a guy who only met the MC once on a conference call with A&R… Then that is they’re representation of hiphop. We need to school the youth, take the blinders off their eyes. Next time you see a kid with a g-unit shirt on and MC bustagun in his cdplayer, smack him in the back of the head, hand him a hoodie and a tribe called quest CD, and send him on his way.
New cats are comming out all the time like “Little Brother” group of 3 guys one of them being 9th wonder (producer) they just came out with a CD that is crazy hot. People like Immortal Technique, The Roots, Casual, Mos Def, Nas, Talib Kweli, Hi-Tek, Dilated Peoples, Jurassic 5, Del, Swollen Members, Souls of Mischief are coming out with new stuff I can go on for days but I am out of time. Papoose spits fire and hes new to the game.
However Sage Francis lyrics are still very popular among the first wave of hip hop lovers. His song Makeshift Patriot still gets many views in YouTube and lots of sales in the stores. However is necessary to note that rap music has changed greatly and such poets as Sage Francis are remembered mostly for very impressive lyrics, but not because of the interest towards the genre itself.