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Music

[Music Video] Inside Sage Francis' Dystopian Anime, "ID Thieves"

The bearded rapper becomes a hero straight out of 'Akira,' 'Ghost in the Shell,' or 'Blade Runner.'
Images courtesy the artist

Hip-hop poet with a punk rock soul Sage Francis enters a dystopian robot-infested anime world in his new video for “ID Theives,” animated by Aaron Lampert. Lampert weaves the DNA of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira, Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell, and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner with a splash of classic Terminator into the bearded rapper’s tale of escape from a sinister organization of face-stealing robots.

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“I didn't want to repeat in the visuals what he was already putting across lyrically, so I decided to take things out of context and build my own parallel story alongside the original,” Lampert tells The Creators Project. The song reminded him of late 80’s and early 90s sci-fi, so he carried that impression to its logical conclusion, animating red-eyed androids and a trenchcoat-wearing, kung-fu dropping Sage with his trusty Wacom Cintiq tablet.

And Sage Francis loves it. "I'm most impressed with how he caught my likeness without ever asking me to film reference shots,” he wrote on Facebook. “Kinda freaked me out. In a good way."

Watch “ID Thieves” below, then check out exclusive behind-the-scenes images and concept art.

Listen to more Sage Francis here, and see more of Aaron Lampert’s work on his website.

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