Francis Baptiste Strikes a Raw Chord With Indigenous Folk-Rock Testament “Locked in for Life”
Francis Baptiste, the Syilx singer-songwriter whose voice has become a vessel for Indigenous truth and lived testimony, presents his latest single “Locked In For Life,” a searing portrait of survival in East Vancouver. The track arrives as Baptiste continues to build momentum toward his third full-length album, Lived Experience in East Vancouver, and confirms his place as one of Canada’s most vital Indigenous folk-rock artists.
“Locked In For Life” is stark in its honesty, a song that confronts the rising cost of living and the precariousness of survival in a city that often feels indifferent to its artists. Francis Baptiste delivers both guitar and vocals, joined by Rob Thomson on bass, Max Ley on drums, Feven Kidane on trumpet, and Ricardo Pequenino on vocals. The ensemble creates a soundscape that is urgent and resonant, one that embodies the tension between exhaustion and endurance.
“I’m barely f’cking surviving here,” Baptiste admits in the lyric, a declaration that is not performance but documentation. The refrain, “Don’t try to wake me if I’m screaming / I’m just dreaming / of a day that I don’t hate this life… I’m locked in for life,” stands as both lament and affirmation. This is music that refuses pretense, instead carving strength out of the raw contours of lived experience.
The trumpet line from Feven Kidane gives the track an almost 90s punk-ska edge, widening its emotional scope. For Baptiste, the sound reflects the resilience of East Vancouver: rough, resourceful, and relentless. He recalls busking on Granville Island to pay rent as a single father, each day a grind of survival. That memory infuses the track and its accompanying video, which revisits those streets as both witness and stage.
“Locked In For Life” belongs to the larger narrative of ‘Lived Experience in East Vancouver’, a record that Baptiste has described as an album about survival. Each song is drawn from the textures of his neighborhood, where stories of addiction, Indigenous identity, poverty, and resilience converge. Rather than distance himself from these realities, Baptiste positions himself within them, singing not just about survival but from within survival itself.
This grounding has been a hallmark of Baptiste’s artistry. His debut album ‘Sneqsilx (Family)’ introduced listeners to songs sung partly in Nsyilxcən, his endangered Indigenous language. His follow-up, ‘Senklip, the Trickster’, extended those commitments to oral tradition, fatherhood, and intergenerational trauma. By the time of “Locked In For Life,” Baptiste’s voice carries the authority of an artist who has walked through these stories and returned with the music to tell them.
Critical reception has matched the gravity of his work. CBC has praised him as “unsparingly candid,” while the Georgia Straight described his songs as “bluesy, bruised, and blossoming.” Such praise reflects not only the quality of his songwriting but the integrity with which he marries biography and artistry.
Musically, “Locked In For Life” is as compelling as it is unflinching. Rob Thomson’s bass anchors the song in steady pulse, Max Ley’s drumming supplies both propulsion and grit, and Pequenino’s layered vocals serve as counterpoint to Baptiste’s. The result is a track that feels less like a studio construction than a lived document — one born of collaboration and necessity.
Baptiste frames the song’s message in broader terms as well.
“As time goes by East Van feels increasingly like a place that is defined by its struggles: whether you’re a drug addict, an Indigenous person, poor, a single father, or a starving artist — this city is about survival. That’s what this album is about and what this song is about. It gets harder every year, but we can’t give up now. We’re locked in.”
It is this refusal to give up that defines “Locked In For Life.” Far from despair, the song affirms persistence. It recognizes the hardships of addiction, housing insecurity, and systemic injustice, while insisting on the dignity of those who endure them. Baptiste’s art turns endurance into testament, and testament into song.
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