Gambling Man

It may even be overly optimistic to say that out of
1,000 rappers only one will have what it takes to make a living off
their music. If Portland has 10,000 rappers—and it just
might—then a good percentage of those lucky few are probably in
the Sandpeople. Were you to place bets on those with the brightest
outlook of all, I would advise you to let it all ride on Sapient, AKA
Marcus Williams.

Williams, a Eugene transplant, has been making music for the better
part of the last decade. His first solo album, the raw and rugged
Dry Puddles, is a masterpiece of sample-based underground
hiphop. Charging from the gate with exuberant wordplay and banging
beats, Sapient’s debut album has the rare ability to stand up to even
his most recent work, and came some time before Williams’ signature
singing began to appear on tracks, something that emerged later during
his work with Sandpeople and Debaser. 

Truly Williams’ best asset is his versatility: As a producer his
beats sell for hundreds of dollars a pop, and bang in club sound
systems like no other. As a sound engineer he crafts radio-ready tracks
in short order. As an emcee he delivers clever material in a unique and
confident tone. And as a singer he is, well, shockingly good. His
singing became so much a part of his style that, with the help of
Grayskul’s Onry Ozzborn, he completed a full-length rock album,
Slump.

On his newest solo full-length, Make More, Williams continues
to build his reputation as one of the Northwest’s best and most
prolific hiphoppers. As his production style shifted away from orthodox
sampling to a fusion of analog and synthetic instruments, Williams now
tends to assemble towering pieces of epic and grandiose orchestration.
Lyrically, Make More features one of the best story-songs in
recent memory (“I Did It”), and the album is compiled of beats
that can fill rooms, knock down doors, and kick a few faces along the
way.

There is no Vegas wager for who is most likely to succeed in
up-and-comer hiphop, but if there were, smart money would be on Sapient
to climb to the top on the back of Make More and his great body
of work with Sandpeople. And as a proud, card-carrying member of the
hiphop self-promotion club, his own money would probably be on himself
as well: “I’ve always been as real as it gets,” says Williams. “I’m
willing to bet everything on myself ’cause I kill it to death.”