I had agreed to meet Sage Francis at Dunkin’ Donuts on Thayer Street in the College Hill section of Providence. Since I was a little early, I decided to chill out front. Given that it is close to several of the cities colleges and being lined with sidewalk cafes, coffeehouses, and record shops, Thayer Street stays packed with people and auto traffic. Providence is one of those old cities that began expanding before the invention of the car. Streets crisscross and wind as they climb the hills around downtown. Main avenues and side streets alike are as narrow as they come. Parked cars line every inch of curb. So when the jackass driving the Pepsi truck decided to stop in the right lane to make a delivery, he instantly bottlenecked traffic. The horns started right away. After a few minutes, a cop stepped up and stopped traffic in the left lane and started waving cars through. It was in this line of traffic that I watched Sage drive past me. Stuck in the flow.

A few minutes later, he came walking up the street with his hand extended to me.

“How's it going?” I asked.

“That f*ckin' idiot stopped his truck right in the middle of traffic and it’s impossible to find a parking spot around here.”

We walked down Thayer towards a small park taking in the sites. Providence is a diverse city and with the help of the nearby schools women of all complexions of females were out taking in the sun in their sundresses and spaghetti strapped tops. Brunettes, Latinas, black girls, Asian cuties, blondes. Every few feet there was a dime. None over the age of twenty-three.

“There's a lot of fine girls here, ” I said.

Sage smiled, “Yeah, and they like the warm weather.”

We took a seat on one of the park benches, watching the girls go by and talking about everything from Sage's college radio show and live band to Anticon and Non-Prophets.

George: So do you have any releases coming out you want to talk about?

Sage Francis: The Non-Prophets twelve-inch dropped on August 3rd. Independently, I’m releasing Still Sick, which features Slug from Atmosphere, Apathy, Edan from Boston, and Sixtoo. It's been selling like crazy. It's got radio freestyles, unreleased stuff, spoken word. I’m selling them myself and to local stores on consignment. I don’t even want it put out professionally. People appreciate the rawness. When we put out the Non-Prophets LP, that's gonna knock heads off f*ckin' shoulders. Production-wise. Lyric-wise. Just style-wise. Joe [Joey Beats] has all kinds of beats and I have all different styles so we are going to show people that it's not cool to sit in a cage and never change. We're not gonna look back at it in five years and cringe. But it will probably not be out for a year or so.

You're part of The Secret Service Crew. Tell me about that.

TSS is Phes, Ams, and Orator, which is Clokworx. Myself. Vocab, who is younger. He got in to the mix later. Elements, who has a group, One Verse, but I don’t know if they are putting anything out. AdeeM is down with our crew. It's not a tight thing though. We don't hang out everyday or anything. I haven't seen those fools forever. We're all doing our thing and we're from the same area. That's what it is now. TSS helps us remember where we started and where we came from.

Think you'll put out some music together?

That was the plan. I don’t see it now though. I did a song with Vocab.

You still do shows together though.

Oh yeah. I've been putting on a lot of shows in Rhode Island and I try to hook them up. Lately I’ve been doing shows all over and they haven't come with me.

Any other crews from Rhode Island?

There's other MC's and DJ’s and groups but as a crew, as far as putting out material, killing shows, hitting open mics and winning battles, we're the only ones putting it down.

Ever seen Paul Barman at an open mic? He went to school in Providence.

Hell no! I've never seen that motherf*cker around here. Although someone told me I did a show with him at Brown a few years ago. I don't remember him.

And you're down with Anticon?

I'm affiliated with them. I think that is the best way to put it. I just recorded with Sixtoo and Buck 65 up in Canada. A lot of people think I'm part of Anticon, but I'm not. We were doing similar music in that we were talking about different things and trying to be more artistic in our music, but I was doing my thing and they were doing theirs and we came together. I want people to know that. I was already making music before I met up with them. They didn't put me on. I want people to know that.

Outside Providence though, you've been active in the Boston scene.

I started doing stuff in Boston in ninety-four. At The Strand in Boston, they had talent shows. You could do two songs and they would judge you. We did that type of sh*t. It went over real well. Performing in Boston was a big deal for me. Back in the day, it seemed like it was far away. I got hooked up with some good people and just being able to win over a crowd that was unfamiliar with me was a big confidence boost.

You won the Superbowl Battle up there, didn’t you?

I won in ninety-nine. I really didn’t want to battle this year. I was up in Vermont doing some spoken word at the X-Games and I wasn't down to do it. The weird thing was, I'd look like an asshole if I didn't go and I didn’t like feeling that way. I mean, last year’s was fun with all the dope people involved, but I was doing something else and didn’t feel like driving all the f*cking way down from Vermont. I made it to the final four but I quit. Okay, let me break it down. This is what happened. By far the best battle of the night was Virtuoso versus AdeeM, but I think beyond any reasonable doubt, AdeeM killed him. The only thing Virtuoso had going was he was bigger, his voice was more powerful. It's David versus Goliath type sh*t, but I was like, “Oh my God! AdeeM just killed him!”

Who decided who won?

The judges. What it came down to was the judges had it as a tie. The same thing happened between me and Esoteric last year but we went into a final round. This year they just decided Virtuoso won.

Who ended up taking the whole thing?

I'm not sure. Professor Shuman, I think. And you know what? I’m not sure I even made it into the final four. I beat the first two but when AdeeM lost, it wasn't even worth competing. Basically, I could give a f*ck about the five hundred dollars you get for winning. F*ck that! My f*cking boy got f*cked! I’m not about to support that sh*t. I threw in the towel and we left.

How did it compare to Scribble Jam?

Scribble Jam was funny. All I had to do was rhyme and I won. It was set up bad. There was like eighty people in it and you couldn’t leave once it started. It was like hip-hop hell. Everyone was sweating. I went in there dressed up as Xaul Zan. It's a silly thing I do where I dress up in a heavy metal vest with a Metallica shirt on. I wanted people to think I was walking by and decided to see what was going on and entered the battle. That way motherf*ckers could underestimate me, then I flip the script on them. In a battle, the least your opponent knows about you, the better. Like when I battled Esoteric and Akrobatik, I knew so much about them because they had stuff out already that I could use and they were looking at me like, “Who the f*ck is this kid?!” In the end though, no one was really into it. After a few hours in there, the clothes got hot and it wasn’t funny anymore. There was a lot of beautiful girls in Cincinnati, but none of them would even look at me dressed like that. Until after I won. Then a few came up to me like they knew me.

Everyone loves a winner.

Yeah, right.

So how's the New York shows going?

Really well. The feedback I get is great. I didn't expect my style and stage antics to go over in New York, but people embraced it. I’ve been hearing from people asking me when I’m coming back.

Where did you perform down there?

CBGB's. The Wetlands. There's one more spot too, but I can't remember the name. The Wetlands was dope. That was my favorite. There is a lot of dope MC’s and DJ’s in New York that I don’t think I would have ever seen unless I lived there for a while like I did. There’s a big creative community there, which I always figured there was seeing how big New York is and how much goes on there. As far as the music that comes out of there, I think they like their music structured and in a certain way and the feeling is that whatever they do is dope because New York is the spot and it's just not that way anymore.

How would you feel if someone was looking for something a little…I guess the word is obscure, and they found your stuff? Obscure meaning there's not posters for it everywhere. Not something that everyone knows about.

I don’t know. I appreciate it all. But I really like feedback. What they like, what they didn’t like. As far as I know, all our sh*t is on Napster. Good for Napster. People tell me now a million people all around the world can hear my music. I don’t give a f*ck if they can, if I don’t hear back from them. People download my sh*t onto CD, but that's not how it was meant to be presented. Each one of my tapes has my personal signature. I present my sh*t with my own cover. A picture I cut out. It's a personal aspect between me and whoever wants my music. Like if someone heard the battle between me and the Underground Kid and nothing else, they're getting it out of context.

Who's the Underground Kid?

That's this funny-ass battle that's on my tape. In the midst of a lot of other things. I had an open door policy on my radio show that if you didn't like me or got pissed off at my sarcasm, come on my show. If you don't respect my skill, come on my show and battle. He came down and I clowned him so I put it on my tape.

And you put that out to show people who you are. That makes sense. You want people to hear it, but it's not a single.

Exactly, it's not a single. When I put out a single, it's, “This is what I think a single should be. This is what I want college radio playing.” I put out a ninety-minute tape to show different sides. I've got different styles. Some sound better as a hip-hop song. Some work better as a spoken word piece. Some stuff I feel works best as an MP3. Me, Sole, and Josh Martinez recorded together up in Canada and right away, we were like, “That's an MP3.”

And what do you do with your live band, Art Official Intelligence?

The band doesn’t play hip-hop. They don’t really listen to hip-hop. I’m like the main hip-hop influence in the band.

What do they play? Like a breakbeat or something?

No, sometimes it sounds rock-ish sometimes it’s jazzy. They like to experiment with different music styles and let me rap over it. It doesn’t have that hip-hop feel like The Roots have. I’m glad because I wouldn’t want to emulate what The Roots do. We're a live band and we sound like a live band.

I always thought The Roots’ live instrumentation sounds like samples.

Oh yeah, they do sound like samples. When you listen to their LP’s, it sounds like samples.

When I first heard they had a live band, I figured they must improvise a lot at their shows because I didn’t see it on the record.

Yeah and they do and they put on a phenomenal show and no one could ever take that from them. You'll know we got live drums on our sh*t. No synthesized drums at all.

What sort of instruments do you have?

We use upright bass, flute, we have an electric wind instrument, keyboards, guitar and live drums. I think it’s a good mix. We put out a full-length a few years ago and it sold pretty well.

And you're Straight Edge? I thought more punk rocks were into that.

Well, it developed in the hardcore movement, which is kind of punk-ish. I came across a lot of people in that scene and was down with Straight Edge beliefs because of things going on in my life. Once I saw how their independent scene was, that's how I went about doing my music. You'd go to a show and they'd present you a tape for two f*cking dollars. They put out their own ‘zines. They supported each other. Since then, I was like, “I’m not waiting for a label to pick me up!” I grabbed other peoples instrumentals, put them on my four-track and made a tape. I sold it for two dollars. Some New York heads I knew said they heard it. From then on, I knew if I did what I thought was dope, it would spread and people would hear it. Ever since then, I've been putting out stuff and making it available.

What do you think about this? A kid I knew had a college radio show and he said he wouldn’t play Pharoahe Monch because [Pharoahe] was trying to go commercial. He said he'd still play Organized Konfusion, but not Pharoahe Monch.

I won’t listen to Pharoahe Monch because I think he got sh*tty. [Laughs] I know he’s dope as f*ck. Organized Konfusion has done some really dope stuff. I know he’s got the ability to do dope sh*t. It’s funny. Once a lot of people know about something, there's these kids that are like, “That’s wack now! That was mine! I’m pissed off!” People feel they own something in a weird way because they know about something and no one else does. The underground thrives on that. It could be the sh*ttiest song in the world, but if even a little something is good about it, some people are like, “This is fresh and if you don’t get up on it, you're wack!” If a label was willing to take my LP as is and wanted to put it out and take care of all the business that goes with that, go ahead. I want my music on CD. Vinyl is only the under-underground and I appreciate that support. That’s a good base to have, but if a million people want to listen to my music, go ahead.

Do you remember what the first hip-hop song you heard was?

Yeah, actually I do. [Laughs]

What was it? The Rappin' Duke?

[Laughs] Nah, it was a PSA. A f*ckin' “Don’t Smoke” or some sh*t like that. It was just a plain 808 beat and this girl rapping like, “Don't smoke / Its a joke.” Probably a really wack thing. I was at my aunts house and I told her, “I want that!” I wanted a tape of it. The arrogance to speak to me in rhyme and tell me to do something. I was eight, I think. Since than, I’ve hunted it. I had to go through the store tape by tape and guess what was hip-hop by the name and the tape cover. I don’t really tell people I listen to hip-hop anymore. People have this idea that hip-hop is some big jiggy movement. That's not what I represent and that's not what I want people associating with me.

So how do you want people to remember you?

I want to stay fresh and keep doing different things. But I think no matter how on top you are when you reach your pinnacle, someone is going to come out after you and go beyond what you did. I think that's inevitable in any music form. Like DJ Premier, without a doubt one of the greatest, he has done so many of my favorites. To me he's still making the same records. People really respond to it and that works for him. I think that there have been people who have come out since he did that have gone so far above and beyond what he has done. I don’t want people to hear my music and go, “Oh, that’s Sage.” I don’t want people to identify me with one sound. I want to keep trying different things.

I'm out of questions. Anything else you want to talk about?

Not really. I've got to go find a present for my girl. It’s her birthday.