Originally published in Verbicide issue #16

A note to newcomers: if you are just getting into Saul Williams now, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Sure, it’s great to have you on board, and we know his art will affect you in wonderful ways, but seriously, the dude’s been consistently gaining momentum since ‘97.

Don’t get me wrong, a quick glance at the breadth and depth of Saul’s work can be a bit overwhelming. Not too many artists in our modern society have the inclination to immerse themselves in poetry, music, politics, and drama, let alone the mental capacity to make it all work harmoniously. But you have to understand that Saul has an innate ability to bridge so-called scenes, genres, and artistic styles with complete finesse. And just so you know, that’s because he has realized the true nature of art and humanity and has seen the linkages that are invisible to most. And he’s studied Paul Robeson.

If you’ve done your research, you will notice that most journalists envision Saul Williams as a representative of hip-hop. Don’t believe them. Please understand that Saul is not out to save hip-hop. Indie rock- types, like their proselytizing forefathers, are always out to save a darker-skinned culture from itself. But hip-hop doesn’t need to be saved, and even if it did, Saul wouldn’t do himself justice trying to save it. Saul Williams actually stands sort of adjacent to hip-hop in general. He is neither a part of it, nor so apart from it as to be against it. He is somehow bigger than all that.

So what is Saul Williams all about then? I would say he is essentially about the word, whether it be spoken, sung, or written, as a tool to affect the collective consciousness. And as such, he operates on a more fundamental level than your average artist. Saul is an intellectual who managed to squeeze his foot into an otherwise vapid entertainment industry. Now that he’s in, his unique perspective coupled with his style is allowing him to break into the film and TV industry, the music industry, and the literary industry. And as such, Saul Williams is a renaissance man, period.

Maybe Saul expresses the thoughts we’ve been meaning to think, but couldn’t imagine by ourselves. Maybe he breaks our stereotypes of art and music, and reminds us what it’s all about. Or maybe he’s just having fun.

So you played an interesting role in the TV show “Girlfriends” — you played a celibate guy. How did that come about, and what was that like?
Well, I was asked to do it by the producers of the show. They had written a role which they thought would appeal to, as they put it… what did they say… like, “the black bohemia?” (laughter) I knew one of the producers beforehand, and it had been sort of a caricature of some sort of impression they had gotten from me, or something. But they weren’t planning on asking me to audition for the role; they didn’t think I would do it. But the day before they held auditions, they asked me if I would do it, and I was like, “Yeah, I would definitely do it!” So that was that.

Wow.
It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed working on a sitcom — it’s a lot of work, but there’s a lot of laughter. And I also respected how they worked, in that, when there were instances when one of the girls didn’t agree with what was being said, or something like that, they definitely felt free enough to meet on that, and have meetings on that with the director and producers and writers. And they would do that all the time. They’d be like, “I don’t think we should say this line, because when I was growing up, if I heard this I would think this, that, and the other, and I don’t think that’s a good idea.” And they would sit and discuss it.

That’s great. See, I wasn’t sure if you were able to develop your character or if they were just like, “We’re looking for a celibate guy, let’s call Saul Williams.”
No. (laughter) It was not some sort of open call thing.

I just thought it was cool to have a celibate black man on TV, because that kind of goes in the face of the image of the over-sexualized black man that’s always on TV…
Right.

So you opened for Nine Inch Nails a few months ago, was that in Europe?
That was in Europe and the States.

How did you find their audience?
Very open. Very open. Every show we did with them, the audience was highly receptive. I think the most difficult show we had was in Spain, and it wasn’t because the audience wasn’t receptive — they were [receptive], it was just the language barrier. But yeah, it was great.

I wasn’t sure how the message about hip-hop that you have would go over with a crowd that might be seeing hip-hop more from the outside.
Well, I mean, that all depends. Some people hear my music and think I’m just talking about hip-hop, other people hear it and think I’m talking about humanity. Other people hear it and think I’m just talking… whatever, you know?

Sure.
It’s all up for interpretation. I don’t really think of my music as being this music that’s primarily “about hip-hop.” And so, in that sense, I think that all sorts of people can find some point of relation. Yeah, there are some songs where I critique what’s happening in hip-hop, but even then, even if they do have an “outside perspective,” then this offers them an in.

So how do you find the current state of hip-hop? Let’s say, compared to 1997-‘98 when you first started out, and there was the two major deaths and then there was Puffy doing his thing…
I’m into it a lot more now than I was then. I’m into a lot of stuff that’s happening commercially and on the underground. And when I say the underground, I don’t mean the alternative, intellectual, sci-fi underground. I mean the underground that’s still coming from the ghettos and urban areas.

Like chopped n’ screwed, or something like that?
Yeah, all that type of underground stuff.

I felt like hip-hop has kind of expanded, and I don’t know what caused it, whether it’s people like you who have been pushing…
It’s about time — I mean, hip-hop is about the same age as a lot of us, and what causes growth other than time and evolution. My only beef that I had with things… There was a moment in hip-hop history where I kind of turned away from it. Now we kind of refer to it as the Puffy era. (laughter)

Exactly!
And it was at that time that I was just so turned off by what was happening. It just seemed like such a money-making ploy. That’s what it was though; you know, they weren’t trying to front like that’s not what it was. It was more about the money they were making than the music. And for me that was extremely boring, frustrating, and even a bit offensive. But at the same time, I can’t front on the creative ways in which people reach the market, and looking at the ways in which a lot of these hip-hop moguls have been successful — even that is a very, very imposing b-boy stance. So, in the long run, I can respect that, even. But the music from that era is usually not my first choice.

It’s funny how someone like Jay-Z, who might have been a bling-bling type of artist, it almost seems like the market allowed him to grow in a way?
It’s not the market. I feel like a lot of people blame the market and blame the industry and all that, but it’s also the artists. I mean, I’ve seen first-hand how individuals conform, how individuals change because they think that’s what the market demands and what have you. And they change not only how they rhyme and what they talk about, they change their lifestyles, they change their whole relationship to their family and to women. Cats change themselves. So I don’t really get nowhere pointing at the industry; I can point at individuals and be like, “Okay, this cat hasn’t allowed himself to evolve, or blah blah blah.” And some cats, say maybe a Jay or someone like that, I am like, “Ok, he has matured…and allowed himself to mature.” But, of course, he was at the forefront of a lot of the stuff that was happening, so he had the space, because essentially he’s a trailblazer. A lot of cats are just following suit.

Let’s talk about your second album. I read another interview where you mentioned that you were trying to go for more of a song structure with it. Trying to get your verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, blah blah blah. And what I notice is the difference in rhyme patterns. Like on Amethyst Rock Star, the rhyming words didn’t have to line up at the end of each line necessarily, and you didn’t have to space out the syllables…
Well, the main distinction is that with Amethyst Rock Star, I wrote most of the lyrics first. And so the reason why the lyrics flow over the beats the way they do is because they weren’t written for the beats. The only song that I…well, not the only song, but one of the few that I wrote to the music on Amethyst was “Penny for a Thought.” But even then, around that time, I was very much about, “Don’t call me an emcee.” I had a very antithetical posture then. (laughter) And this time around, like you said, I was focusing on song structure and all that, but really the main difference was the music came first. And many of the times I wrote for the music.

Did you find it hard to express the same words that you would want to express? [Did you ever have to change] what you were going say because it [didn’t] sound right in the beat, sometimes?
According to the listener, I have a huge agenda as far as what I want to say and the message. According to myself, I’m having fun. Whatever I believe seeps through in whatever I write. It’s just there on the surface all the time. So you can always kind of tell, “Oh this is what I’m thinking, this is what I feel.” But, for instance, a song like “African Student Movement” on this album was freestyled. I freestyled that song right after I made the beat. With, “Where my niggas at…freedom, ignorance, dah dah dah.” That’s just how I freestyle! (laughter) I wasn’t there like, “I wanna write a song that connects Africans and African-Americans, blah blah blah.” It wasn’t of any of that going on.

It would probably be pretty boring if you did.
Yeah, all I did was, I was in a car on the way home from somewhere, and I turned on the radio and I was listening to a song that I didn’t want to admit that I liked. It was R. Kelly and Fat Joe or something like that. Why do I like this song?

To read the rest of this interview, pick up a copy of Verbicide issue #16, available now at the Scissor Press Online Store.