This past Friday night September 28, spoken-word poetry god and well known musical collaborator Saul Williams held court at the dimly lit Parish Room in New Orleans. Williams, a New York native, is currently on tour in support of his new poetry collection, Chorus, which features none of his own writing but the work of one-hundred other poets from across the country.
Williams took the stage at the beginning of the night, gentle and open, explaining about the origin of his latest project and how he chose the poems. After, he opened up the stage for local poet or slam artist to perform a poem in front of the audience. Several members took the stage while Williams sat against a wall behind them, cheering them on and laughing heartily. The came from all backgrounds and ranged from deeply personal to hilarious poems written on a napkin while drunk. The banner over the stage proclaiming “UNITY THROUGH DIVERSITY” never rang more true.
After the line dwindled, Williams returned to the microphone and told the audience he would be up for just reading poems, but would rather have some involvement with them, taking questions and trading conversation. The atmosphere was extremely open with everyone listening intently and enjoying themselves. Williams has the rare gift of making a show like this more like an informal conversation, a meeting of close friends.
“I don’t give a fuck who I do business with; I’m an independent artist. They don’t define what’s in my work.”
He talked about everything from inspirations for some of his works (“I gave my children weird names so I could reference them in my poems and sound deep,” he joked at one point after reading his piece 1987) to working with Nine Inch Nails and top-notch producer Rick Rubin (Williams told a long story about the first time he met Rubin when the producer handed him a copy of the Beatle’s White Album and told him, “Saul, you’re a great writer. This is songwriting. Learn the difference.” Two days later, twenty-thousand dollars of recording equipment showed up at William’s door with a note from Rubin saying, “Let me know when you have twenty songs finished.”)
Williams also touched on his method of writing. “I’m all about the beat,” he said referring to how when recording over a song, he will mutter gibberish first to figure out how the rhythm will work with whatever words he decides to put over it. He also touched upon the intricacies of Southern Rap. “It’s not about the words, it’s about how they ride the beat.” When asked about the future of Hip-hop, he said, “Hip-hop is a reflection of us. Wherever we as a culture decide to go, however materialistic that is, hip-hop will follow that.”
Williams graduated with a BA both in acting and philosophy, interests that continue to speak through his personality and work. His most chilling performance of the night came from a passage he read out of his 2003 collection, , Said The Shotgun To the Head, “The greatest Americans have not/ been born yet/ they are waiting quietly/ for their past to die/ please give blood.”
