Rapper Sage Francis’ new single can be downloaded free at www .conspiracytoriot.com.

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

Rhode Island-based rapper Sage Francis’s latest single is available for free on the Internet and is intended to raise awareness of arrests at the Republican National Convention and money for the defense of one of his friends who was arrested there.

“Conspiracy to Riot,” out now on Francis’s own label, Strange Famous Records, can be downloaded free at www.conspiracytoriot.com, and there’s a link on the page to donate to the defense fund for Jared Paul, a Providence-based poet and activist who was arrested at the convention.

Francis is never shy about what’s on his mind, and “Conspiracy to Riot” is no exception: “This is for the ugly ducklings of my country,” the record begins.

Over a somber, piano-based groove, the song continues with Francis’s take on the current political situation: “It’s us who put in the overtime, they who make the money. … When the hunter becomes the hunted, they outlaw hunting.”

It ends with audio of protesters at the convention being arrested.

The song was written, recorded and mixed in four days, which is pretty quick by most standards, but especially Francis’. He described himself during the process as “a nonstop ball of fury and focus. So that’s the best way to get something like that done.”

More than 800 people were arrested at the Republican convention, in St. Paul, Minn., last month. Among those arrested were dozens of journalists, most notably Amy Goodman of Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now! Program, and two Associated Press reporters.

Paul is a friend of Francis’ from junior high school who was writing about the convention for The Agenda, a free weekly paper in Providence. He was arrested at a concert.

Francis says that in the first 24 hours since the song’s release, the Web site has raised $2,600 in donations. “A lot of people are being really fed up. As long as we give them the information that [the charges are] really some [lies] …. People really came through; people do something.”

Paul has a lawyer in St. Paul, and he’s already had to fly there for a 20-second court proceeding.

“We’ve lived together, toured together, protested together, argued with one another from time to time, and shared many incredible moments over the past 15 years,” Francis says of Paul on the Conspiracy to Riot site.

“He is a social worker, a community organizer, a selfless human being and a champion of justice. He’d do the same for me in return. He’d probably do the same for you.”

rmassimo@projo.com