Saul Williams is a poet and musician who rose to fame in the NYC slam poetry scene. He has performed with Allen Ginsberg, KRS-One, and many others. Rick Rubin produced his first album,Amethyst Rock Star, and his forthcoming album is being produced by Trent Reznor. Williams is also an outspoken critic of the Bush administration and the so-called War on Terror. His newest collection of poetry is The Dead Emcee Scrolls. We spoke with him during his recent spoken word tour.
BEAST: In another interview, you criticized the current state of hip hop as a microcosm of the problems in our society as a whole. What do you see as a positive next step in those spheres?
Saul Williams: It’s not so much a criticism as an observation – that gangsterism has been running the country at the same time that gangsterism has been running hip hop. We’ve had misplaced values in how we think we should be run as a nation and the same misplaced values are what we’ve responded to in music.
Where are we headed? You can look at what’s happening in either forum – whether that’s Barack Obama and Hilary on the ticket or whether that’s MIA or TV on the Radio on a CD. It’s evolving because of itself and despite of itself.
B: Why isn’t there a table of contents in your new book?
SW: There’s no real reason. I’ve thought about it, but if I did that I’d have to name the poems, and half the book is journal entries. I like having things that don’t have titles remain that way.
B: You started off as a spoken word artist and poet –
SW: Well I started off rhyming, as a rapper. Poetry was the last thing that I discovered. I started off rhyming, writing songs, and acting. Eventually I stumbled upon poetry.
B: I meant recording albums. Weren’t you approached to make your first album after a poetry reading?
SW: I definitely started recording music after I was writing poetry. But the first things I ever wrote, when I first sat down to write something at eight or nine years old, were songs. Rap songs. Verse, chorus, verse. The first things I wrote were songs; it took me a minute to remember that. And once I got to writing poetry, that led me back to creating music. For one, with that state of disillusion with the current state of hip hop instead of being a critic I was trying to fill that void in between what I was hearing and what I wished I was hearing. And secondly, I had heard some really inspiring music around that time that made me realize that I could do something different: Portishead, Tricky, Massive Attack, Bjork, drum n bass, Goldie, and that whole world. It opened me up because I saw all of that as hip hop and/or in very close relation to hip hop. Opening my mind up to what was happening here as well as elsewhere gave me a lot of new ideas.
The first song I recorded was for a compilation called Lyricist Lounge, this track called Ohm. We started playing with the drum beat, speeding it up and slowing it down and I realized that I could do anything if I divorced myself from the idea of doing what was expected to be done in hip hop. I realized that what really moved me in hip hop was when people did the unexpected. Public Enemy was unexpected. A Tribe Called Quest, that second album, The Low End Theory, was completely unexpected. So I just started challenging myself to do the unexpected, and I’ve done a lot of fun stuff as a result.
B: Your last three books were published by MTV Books, a Viacom subsidiary. What’s the deal with that?
SW: We’re living in a state of emergency. Poetry is seen as a peripheral art form. When I had my first book of poetry I had to decide between a book company that was credible for poetry and a book company that could reach the demographic of my peers. And …well, why not? I’ve got a great lawyer, and here’s the thing: With all the sharks that I’ve dealt with, in music and film and so on, these books that are published by MTV /Viacom –it’s not like the head of Viacom is reading my books. I actually dissed him in my book. I have never, ever, ever been told to change a single word. Everything that I’ve ever wanted to publish on page has come out exactly as I wanted it. S/he, said the shotgun to the head, and now The Dead Emcee Scrolls are exactly how I wanted them done. I can’t say the same for Amethyst Rock Star. I can say the same for the second album because I did it independently, but what I did through music channels in the industry, I had people asking me and expecting me to compromise every step of the way. So, I have nothing negative to say about this.
For example, we had it put in the contract that we would do commercials for the book that would run on MTV. I have been fully supported there, which is not to say that that makes them… whatever. But it does say that the powers that be don’t have as much power as the power of being. And big ol’ corporations don’t mean shit, because they’re controlled by individuals. It’s just like The Wizard of Oz, or The Wiz, the man behind the curtain …but if you find the courage and the strength to approach that so-called man behind the curtain and look him in his eyes, you do what needs to be done. Bob Dylan hasn’t put out any independent albums, and I don’t really feel that he’s compromised. Do you?
B: No, not really. [That Victoria’s Secret commercial was all class. –Ed.]
SW: Exactly. To me it’s important to keep things in perspective. If I were to say, “I’m not dealing with them,” it’d almost be like I’m surrendering to some idea of their power over me. They don’t have that power over me. I empower them by being frightened of them and of that world, which is not to say that I haven’t been burnt.
I was burned by Sony, Columbia, definitely. I definitely had people sitting in offices, listening to my first album, Amethyst Rock Star, saying that they wouldn’t release it in America because nobody wanted to hear this, as if they could speak for everyone. They’d say, “We’re promoting the Fugees, Nas, and Destiny’s Child, and this doesn’t sound like any of that. What are you doing?” And at that point it became Sony France who was like, “I get it; let us put this out.”
B: In addition to traditional venues, you’ve performed at anti-war demonstrations and rallies with hundreds of thousands of people present. Resistance is growing, but so is the violence in Iraq (somewhere around 650,000 deaths) and it doesn’t show many signs of stopping anytime soon. What can we do to stop the war? Is it possible?
SW: It’s possible when we are able to make connections to the ways in which we’re fighting against ourselves. We’re saying, “Stop the war,” as we drive on full tanks of gas to rallies. We have to be aware of our impact, and that means being aware of your power. So when individuals live up to their highest potential and realize that with power comes responsibility, you’re forced to reevaluate what you call things. Perhaps one might feel that car-pooling is a sacrifice. But is it really a sacrifice – to commune with other people in your vehicle? Even what we label sacrifice, sacrament, oftentimes is neither sacrifice nor sacrament, it’s what the fuck you’re supposed to do. We just have to think about what we’re doing and how we’re doing.
Even here [indicating my lunch] we’ve enslaved the whole fuckin’ world of animals. We don’t think anything about the cheese or eggs we eat or the leather in our shoes or anything about where these things come from. Or the diamonds or the gold or the rubber or the coffee or the chocolate or all these things that come from the continent of Africa that serve as a foundation of our economy. We don’t think anything about the irony of the richest continent having the poorest people. And once we do, then we empower ourselves to change it.
And it is changing; it’s nothing to get depressed or cynical about. For instance, look at what happened with the tsunami. That was the first time where, because of the Internet and what have you, American individuals gave more than America the government. Individuals realized they didn’t have to go through some external system; they can just click a mouse button and give. And now, more and more people are realizing they don’t have to, for example, look for a record deal. They can just click right there and share and sell. People are feeling empowered.
Thus, the government as we know it is going through a shift. The record industry as we know it is going through a shift. And it’s only because people are becoming more and more empowered, and all that means is that they’re realizing their impact / power. Things are evolving, but as it happens there are people fighting to hold on to something that won’t evolve because they’ll lose money. It’s like George Bush giving a special benefit to people who drive SUVs.
And lobbyists fighting against …well, the first cars that came about ran on bio-diesel. That ain’t new, that’s the first vehicles. They ran on electricity and bio-diesel fuel. The technology has always been there. In fact, think of Tesla: light bulb technology reached a point early on where people realized they could make light bulbs that run on solar energy and would last forever. And yet companies like GE shut them up because if they make things that run forever, people won’t come back and buy another one. They say it’s not a good idea. But all of the sudden, good ethics is starting to seem like a good idea.
B: What’s next for you after this tour?
SW: After this, I’m gonna take a little break, and then start mixing my new album, which I’m now finishing up with Trent Reznor. We have a majority of the songs recorded now, so it’s just a matter of mixing them. That’s going to be in April. To me, that’s the most exciting part. My evolution has been – like I said, the first thing I ever wrote was a song. And I just remembered that. And I’m just at the point where it’s like, “Wow, all of this acting, schools…” You know, Mick Jagger went to school for economics. I wonder how long he was in the Rolling Stones thinking it was just some side thing for him. Because I studied [acting] officially, I always thought that would be what I would do. Now it’s suddenly dawning on me, after working with Rick Rubin and Trent Reznor, I’m like, “Oh, wait. I must be a musician.”
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Atheist Hobos 