At age 23, Romaro Franceswa is already tired of answering the question of when he started rapping, but he knows he’ll probably have to do it for the rest of his life.
The answer is 8 years old. That’s when he began writing lyrics and rapping, four years after he picked up drumming. He was never formally trained at playing the drums; he picked it up by watching other drummers, much like Nick Cannon did in the movie “Drumline,” he jokes.
Despite his self-taught drumming skills, Franceswa (pronounced like Francois) was always drawn to rap music instead of rock ‘n’ roll.
“I was an aggressive f—er,” he said.
“But you liked poetry,” said Franceswa’s producer and confidant Cavin Stocker, who produces under the name BeanOne.
“Exactly,” Franceswa said. “I must have had a little soft side to me because of growing up spiritual, my parents being pastors. I had a good balance. I think rapping was one of the best ways I could express myself.”
Balance would later become integral to the south-side rapper’s music, defining his entire approach to honing his craft and becoming the title to his most recent album. Released in November on Franceswa’s SoundCloud, Balance was hailed by publications like City Arts Magazine throughout the Emerald City for its authenticity, candor, and lyrical acrobatics, placing all eyes on the young rapper and what he’ll do next.
Franceswa lived in South Seattle until he was 4, when he moved to Federal Way where his parents still live today. There he began a formidable streak of getting kicked out of school.
“I was a badass, but I was smart,” he said. “I carried good grades, but I would just do dumb sh— and get kicked out of school, like fighting and cussing teachers out.”
Franceswa got expelled from both Kilo and Totem middle schools in Federal Way. After finishing middle school at Zion Preparatory Academy, he was kicked out of Federal Way High School as a freshman. After a few more expulsions and the birth of his daughter at age 17, Franceswa dropped out. He’s been pursuing music ever since.
That pursuit has been far from fruitless, evident from the list of his accomplishments since teaming up with Stocker at age 18: a tour with fellow Seattle rapper Grieves, an in-studio performance on KEXP, and opening performances for legends like Sheila E., Slick Rick, and Rakim.
“I haven’t personally dealt with someone that works on himself so much to be great,” Stocker said. “He’s always looking at his weak link.”
That’s an impressive testament coming from Stocker, who at age 40 has been producing beats and finding musical talent in Seattle for over 20 years.
Larry Mizell Jr., hip-hop columnist for The Stranger and host of KEXP’s Street Sounds, called Stocker “ageless, prolific” in his column praising both the producer and Franceswa for their work on Balance.
“[He’s] not just one of the city’s all-time best hip-hop producers, but high-key one of Seattle rap’s most dependable A&Rs…” Mizell wrote.
Franceswa was listening to artists on Stocker’s YukTheWorld label since he was 12, and joined the creative agency himself at 18. His self-titled, first official mixtape with Stocker came that same year.
Back then, Franceswa wasn’t even doing full songs yet, Stocker said. There was little structure to his work, but the talent was evident. After just five years, he’s now singing, adding bridges to his songs, and planning how things will play out live on-stage.
“I don’t think I’ve seen that much growth in any artist I’ve dealt with,” BeanOne said. “Ever.”
Mentored by BeanOne and Seattle rapper Fatal Lucciauno, Franceswa draws his inspiration from them and one of his non-local idols, Andre 3000 of Outkast, who he says was instrumental in making him confident enough to sing and be vulnerable as an artist.
“Those are the people that influenced me to be myself; that’s what I wanted to be like,” Franceswa said. “I get inspiration from my family a lot too, and the things I’ve seen in my life. My life isn’t just been roses and rap, I’ve been through a lot.”
The experiences that have shaped Franceswa are present on Balance, a poignant testament to the duality of being both forceful and vulnerable, on which the struggles with his demons are soundtracked by BeanOne’s crisp production. The mixtape became an avenue for the Federal Way firespitter to shed the weight of his past and show his audience what balance means to him.
“I’m super-aggressive but also can be the most caring and vulnerable person,” Franceswa said. “Don’t f— with me, but you can if you come correct. That’s balance.”
“[H]e wants you to know the many ways in which he’s better, more driven, more bound for more glory than these other guys,” Mizell wrote about Franceswa. “But he isn’t afraid of his failings, either, he doesn’t pretend to be free of insecurities. Rather, Romaro burns them as fuel.”
Franceswa is using that fuel to launch himself to heights he once believed were unreachable. Already his stage presence is that of a much more established rapper, oozing swagger as he strides across the stage, jumping into the eager crowd and breathing fiery club bangers into the microphone, or stunning the crowd by rapping conscious lyrics a cappella.
“A product of an ’80s generation where only two things were taught/Fight back and f—- that boy Reagan/But who’s the real culprit, Reagan or me, for getting caught up thinking I had to shoot the three or spit a hot 16?” he raps on “Keep It Pushin.”
But as Stocker testified and Mizell wrote in his column, Romaro is “a contrarian, a fire starter, a fierce talent unsatisfied with how things seem to work,” and that fuels him more than anything else.
“I want to be a legend in Seattle, but I don’t just want to end up a local legend — I want to be a legend nationally,” Franceswa said. “I want people to say, ‘He did so much for the city, he gave up so much so other people can have a platform.’ I feel like everybody that came before me did the same thing, and I would be disrespecting them if I didn’t try to do the same.”
Originally published in the Federal Way Mirror