Alan Sage: Defying Expectations

(electricity whooshing) (gentle music) - The middle school I went to, it was very much a segregated middle school.

I went to a program which is probably 90% white, but in the other programs, there were probably 90, 95% black.

My first impulse was to hang out with the kids in the other programs, and it was through them that I really got into rapping.

I think what's great about me rapping is how surprised people are.

I look terribly Jewish, So when people see me I don't think they have any expectation that I'm about to start rapping.

In sixth grade when I was rapping, you know, I had this gold 50 Cent chain.

I had a big shirt with Tupac's face on it.

I had a red dew rag hanging out of my right pocket.

It was really quite a spectacle.

I think that biology and rapping, as much as they seem as totally opposite ends of the spectrum, they sort of have the same end feeling.

Once you figure something out in science, I think you get the same sort of release, emotional release, that you can get from the completion of a rap.

There's a conflict in me, between me of now and me of then.

Please the me of now, the me of when will make its voice grow loud.

♪ And each plank and each piece ♪ ♪ Was removed and then replaced ♪ ♪ My face has different features ♪ ♪ And my leisures are most changed ♪ ♪ Strange that it's me, speaks to me inside my head ♪ ♪ Like more than one can be ♪ ♪ One remains, one climbs ahead ♪ ♪ We miss thinking that we were thinking as ourselves ♪ ♪ And not just a part of a much larger heart ♪ ♪ A society's a man and a leader's just appearing ♪ ♪ We should all get together, sit down and look at mirrors ♪ ♪ Am I me, am I you ♪ ♪ Can I be both myself and you too ♪ ♪ There's existence going on in infinite ways ♪ ♪ The dots just rearrange ♪ ♪ We all have infinite days ♪ ♪ And just enough time to say and to see ♪ ♪ That there is no harmony ♪ ♪ This arrangement that we see ♪ (gentle music) (Alan coughing) It's really bad to be a rapper with a cold.