Intelligent rhymes and memorable hooks.

Sage Francis and Joe Beats, unlike most youngsters today, respect old-school education. Sage has won every MC competition going – essentially the hip-hop equivalent of the spelling bee – while Beats has been paying attention in crate-digging class, producing simple but supple beats. Some of the humour should have stayed in the playground (would you use language like that at home, boy?) but, overall, Sage favours intensely intelligent rhymes over the unnecessarily abstract tongue-twisters of most leftfield rappers. Bet they can still do “red lorry, yellow lorry” really fast though… (7/10) Paul Clarke 10 October 03

Non-Prophets – Hope, released 13 October 03 on Lex.

useful link: www.lexrecords.com