Pitchfork

It doesn't require a particularly puritanical moral stance to balk at some of the misogyny, homophobia, and bloodlust that are rampant in music culture, and particularly in mainstream rap, where these values have found their most fertile and overt purchase. This is not a new idea, regardless of whether you view the trend as toxic or innocuous.

Possibly the last interesting facet of this phenomenon is how people with staunchly progressive politics and who countenance no hate speech in their everyday lives can switch these precepts off like a faucet when confronted with the hypnotic strains of the latest 50 Cent single. Maybe we're too postmodern to apprehend values so contrary to the ones we profess as anything but satirical cultural criticism. Or maybe we've just been lulled into compliance, taught that the small voice of the conscience is the priggish influence of Tipper Gore, to be suppressed and disregarded.

In our neoconservative political environment, all dissent is treason. Rap eerily echoes this conservatism; all dissent is player-hating. Talib Kweli was onto this years ago: "Reverse psychology got 'em scared to say when shit is whack/ Out of fear of being called a hater, imagine that!" Sage Francis can be truthfully called a lot of not-necessarily-nice things: Self-absorbed, condescending, solipsistic, and heavy handed. But he could never be accused of docility. Francis never mastered the shoulder shrug that's become so natural a defense mechanism for many of us; his stockpile of moral outrage is limitless, and whether you agree with his renunciation of mainstream rap as repetitive, poisonous filler (on "Dance Monkey": "She likes the repetitive songs that keep playin'/ You know the repetitive songs that keep playin'?") or think he's a self-aggrandizing prick, it's fascinating to observe how strangely he rubs against the culture, turning its own weapons against it and criticizing its assumptions.

On A Healthy Distrust, Francis continues to refine his contradictory blend of trash talk and activism, political polemic and introspection, pedantic bluster and profound insecurity. He's always emphasized substance above style: If you have something to say, you say it, even if it means losing the beat for a minute. But here his style has finally caught up with his intellect, and while his beats are passable but unexceptional, his voice locks onto and scans over them so ferociously they're almost obliterated. He's a Bizzarro-world Eminem, his voice low instead of high; using his ramifying metaphors and serpentine rhyming schemes to decry cultural decline instead of celebrating it.

Ever the realist, Francis doesn't seem to hold any hope of closing these wounds, political or personal--his invective is depressive and irate, imbued with a sense of determined futility. "The Buzz Kill", erupting with antsy strings and explosive drums, laments the decadence and celebrity-worship of rap culture. "Sea Lion", all skittering drums and hypnotic melody, is equally pessimistic about the prospects of healing childhood injuries: "Ma, look what I did to my hands, I broke 'em/ You gave me the stone, gave me the chisel, didn't say how to hold them". And "Gunz Yo" is strikingly brave, taking on rap's firearm fetish with all of the stridency of what it attacks.

Fire with fire. "Gunz Yo" isn't a plea for non-violence, it's a bald-faced threat. "It might remind you of a mic the way I hold it to the grill of a homophobic rapper/ Unaware of the graphic nature of phallic symbols/ Tragically ironic, sucking off each others gats and pistols". This isn't the first time Francis has overtly spoken out against homophobia, and it's lines like this-- and his classic turn from Non-Prophets's Hope, "I attended candlelight vigils for Matthew Shepard while you put out another 'fuck you faggot' record"-- that best exemplify the bipolar, counterintuitive nature of his style.

Of course, I don't think Sage Francis is going to make anyone change their minds or behavior, and he doesn't seem to think so either. But he expresses an especially distinct, heartfelt worldview, and serves as a galvanic reminder to reevaluate your politics and morals on a personal level. The vast majority of hip-hop isn't harmful or hurtful, but that doesn't mean we should open wide for whatever they want to shove down our gullets. Amid such adverse circumstances of unclear implication, a bit of distrust seems healthy indeed.