At the genesis of internet-promoted hip hop, Sage Francis operated at a truly punk-esque DIY level. His Sick Of… mixtape series was the antithesis of the high-speed cleaner of recordings. While everyone else was discovering Acid and Pro Tools, Sage was on the double decks recording shoddy tape-hiss drenched ballads about peeping tom behavior — or was that Xaul Zan?
It has been four years since the last Sick Of… mixtape, but the hiatus is over. Let the cleaning of the vaults (harddrive?) commence:
I wasn’t sure if I would ever release another mix of this sort after the last one, but it’s been a couple years since my last official album and I’ve accumulated a large number of “left over” tracks that never found their way onto an official album. I also opened up the 4-track vault this year and was able to unearth some solid material that dates back to 1996.
My music career, as most people know it, essentially began with the Sick of Waiting mixtape in 1999. Now that I’ve typed that out I’ve realized that we’re essentially celebrating the Sick Of… mixtape series’ 10th birthday. Hot damn. It seems like just yesterday I was dubbing all the original tapes, cutting and pasting the album covers, writing out the album info on the stickers, and selling them hand-to-hand at shows. Time (f)lies. – Sage Francis
Sage Francis, “Masturbate Your Brain '97”
Sick of Wasting… is available for purchase at Strange Famous Records if you are sick of not having Sage's autograph.
