Not a True Sage, Just a Drew Sage

Drew Sage is by far a prime example of an individual whose passion for rap music is undying. At the age of 10 he wrote his first poem and quickly learned through kudos and prompting from his 5th grade English teacher that writing was something he was good at. By the time he was 16 he regularly wrote poetry and short stories. As hip hop started to gain momentum Drew was into memorizing songs like “Count Cool Out” and of course “ Rapper's Delight” but it wasn’t until “Roxanne's Revenge” that he actually was compelled to write his first rhyme. Born to Jamaican parents in Kingsbury, England, Drew’s family moved to Roselle, NJ in 1971. His parents divorced in 1975 when he was 7 and due to minor financial hardships (minor cause he never went to bed hungry) Drew and his mother bounced around several cities in the New Jersey and Maryland areas. Ironically, 6 months after Drew wrote his 1st rhyme, in 1985 him and his mother moved to the town of Claremont in San Diego, Ca. At Claremont High he hooked up with a phenomenal rapper from The Bronx who called himself MG J Kazz. MG showed Drew how to refine his technique utilizing intellect as a main staple of the rhyme. This style was based on the amazingly lyrical T La Rock who was completing his brief stint on Def Jam Records. To this day T La is still Drew’s favorite spitter.

Unfortunately, MG was a little more rough around the edges than Drew’s mother would’ve liked and when Drew got his first brush with the law while in the company of MG, Drew’s mother moved them to Berkeley, Ca. at the conclusion of his junior year at Claremont High. The whole rationale for Drew’s mother moving them to California in the first place was because college tuition was so much cheaper than on the East Coast. Drew found his senior year at Berkeley High to be quite difficult and he instantly became anti-social which allowed him more time to write and memorize rhymes. Since he was never exceptional when it came to “goin’ off the head” he opted out for the title “lyricist” as opposed to “rapper”. Drew grew tired of having to rely on others to produce beats he needed to spit on. So in the summer of 1986 after graduation he took on three jobs and bought two Technique 1200’s, a Numark mixer, a Casio drum machine and a Yamaha sampler. One thing that Drew noticed in the East Bay Area during that time was the incredible following that Too Short and Mac Mall had as amateurs. Toning down the intellectual style he had refined with hardcore verbal pornography gave way to his first solo demo cassette tape. Recorded on a borrowed 4-track cassette recorder which Drew was not at all familiar with, the tape’s clarity left a lot to be desired but was still ‘released’ to the homies in January of 1987 entitled “Porno Flow” on side one and “Pervert Alert” on side two. He was calling himself D.D. Drew-Skee by then where the D’s stood for Demoralizing Derelict.

He started attending San Francisco State University at the end of January of ’87 and did not come out with another demo tape until 1991 when he released “The Power of Suggestion” again on cassette and again to the homies. This was the first time he used the moniker 'Drew Sage' . The rationale behind the name was simple. We all are not perfect in order to continue to strive for perfection. Keeping that in mind there is no way possible to be a TRUE SAGE in this state of existence. If it is impossible for him to be a True Sage he must be a Drew Sage. In 1990 he submitted an entry into KMEL’s Christmas Rap contest and made it to the top 10 where he performed in the finals held at Sunvalley Mall in Hayward, Ca. Two of the judges were the late Rick Chase and Theo. Although he continued to write, he branched off to further develop his poetry and wrote his first screenplay, which laid the basis for a novel sometime in the near future. In 1995 he received a Bachelor of Arts in Broadcasting and one in Black Studies. In 1997 he came out with his 3rd demo cassette tape entitled “Warranted Paranoia”. This was by far his most solid production in terms of recording and in terms of song structure.

In 2005 Drew bought a digital 16-track recorder and came out with his first digital recording entitled “Nypho Brainiac”. A year and a half later “Cunnilingular” and a year after that the double CD “Berkeley Skinny”. With a suggestion from a friend at work Drew Sage joined Ursession.com in ’08. He was approached by a dynamic rocker from Iowa who proposed a remix of his underground hit “Silly Me”. Drew was honored and after listening to the cuts on Williams’ page, sent him a vocal mix. At that time ursession.com’s 100K Battle was in full swing. To make a statement on how unfair Drew thought the contest was, he downloaded 13 instrumental tracks provided for entries and made 13 songs but did not enter even one of them. This rubbed a few of the contestants the wrong way but ironically led to a part on a Ursession Wake Up Anthem. Along with Lenny Williams , Drew Sage has projects in the conceptual stage with Mygrane Mcnastee and D Ross, ursession.com juggernauts. On top of The Anthem, Silly Me II and a remix of the remix featuring  Mygrane,  Drew has also worked with Lenny Williams on an anti-war track he wrote entitled “War Counsel” and a comical, lyrical quagmire paying homage to some of ursession.com’s most celebrated spitters entitled “Haystack Needle”. With constructive suggestions from Sean Wan ,  Drew has ventured into new avenues of exposure including Reverb Nation, Twitter and Face Book.