You can’t make generalizations about hip-hop.

You can’t say it’s only about the commercialism, the cribs and the money. You can’t say rappers are teenage thugs lacking any real talent.

You can’t — because rappers like Stockton’s The Savage Sun will be there to prove you wrong.

A former punk singer, The Savage Sun is set to release his solo debut, "The Art of Being Alive," this weekend. The album brings together complex, layered beats with the rapper’s intense delivery and often-introspective lyrics.

Listeners will hear "some heavy and deeply profound lyricism. They’re going to hear a versatile album where the mood changes," said The Savage Sun, 34, born Christopher Schamber.

"Meet a man whose soul is not for sale/who doesn’t understand what it means to fail/like a runaway locomotive gripping the rail/I’m barreling with fury as I’m carving the trail," he rhymes over a spooky string sample on "We Keep it Movin’"

Lyrics like those are part of the reason The Savage Sun was drawn to rap. It wasn’t his first love, however. He discovered punk when he was in eighth grade via a Sex Pistols album.

"It allowed me to channel my angst as a youngster," The Savage Sun said of punk. "It made me feel like I had something distinct to hold on to."

The Savage Sun said he wasn’t drawn to rap until 1996, when he heard the Wu-Tang Clan classic "Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)." The Staten Island collective’s expansive and experimental lyrics opened him up to the possibilities of hip-hop.

By 1998, he was writing and performing, and he had joined with the producer Damage to start the production company Audio Might Productions.

At the time, however, The Savage Sun wouldn’t release a solo album. He said he felt he wanted to take his time and create a "strong, legitimate" project.

That process lasted about four years, as he wrote his first song for "The Art of Being Alive" in 2003.

"The Art of Being Alive" comes with a DVD that includes a video for The Savage Sun’s song "A Tight Grip on Nothing."

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