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Wednesday, 09 April 2008 03:41 PM |
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Written by Jena Lowe |
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"That passion for music has set the stage for me to be able to perform." --Saul Williams Ruby Hornet's "It's Bigger Than Hip Hop Music spotlight continues with an exclusive interview with Saul Williams. Saul has long pushed the boundaries of Hip Hop, and have had many saying, damn I didn't know poetry was like that! RubyHornet: I have a lot of questions for you and could probably keep you all day because there is so much to unpack with your art. To start, tell me a bit about your background as a child in NY and where performance and music entered the scene for you. Saul Williams: I grew up in Newburgh, New York. My father was a minister and had trained to become an opera singer as a child. My mother was a school-teacher and a part of a local theater company. My dad's best friends were musicians: piano players, soloists. By 8 I decided I wanted to perform. I came home and said I wanted to be an actor. The first thing my dad said was "get a law degree." As far as where music entered the scene, I was in every school play every year. I was a rapper and break-dancer. I did every talent show, did oratory, speech competitions. Any opportunity I had to express myself, I was involved. RubyHornet: You're an actor, writer, poet, and music artist. Which one did you envision first? Saul Williams: I'm always doing what I'm passionate about. I hope it's clear that my passion for music is there in my music. That passion in music has set the stage for me to be able to perform. That is what I'm passionate about. That is where those things meet. My passion is inclusive of all of those fields, but each requires something different of me. Poetry is much more intellectual my head is working a particular way. Poetry allows me to postulate around certain questions. Music allows me to focus on other things. In acting, there is a level of surrender. I may have to play a character I didn't write, I may have to find myself in a role very different from myself and my own thoughts. RubyHornet: How did you know which art to start with? Saul Williams: To me that's where the poetry is how I' ve been able to live off of my art. Most of my art is intuitive. I wanted my acting career to move slower than my music career, cuz I don’t really believe a lot of actors that come out with albums. When I think of you as an actor first, there's a level of credibility lost in my book. According to my own standards if I became too successful as an actor, I wouldn't believe myself. The stuff that I got excited about were films that were not green-lit, but amazing. If I'm in this s**t to be an artist, why the f**k would I want acting to be a 9-5 for me? Music set me free and poetry really set me free. Rick Rubin said, do you want record deal? I realized I really only wanted to perform what I believed in. I wanted it to be dope. And I realized it was dopest when it was something real and heartfelt. RubyHornet: I love your song "List of Demands" It's so eclectic with a Hip Hop heavy bass mixed with rock and your poetry. What inspired you to write it? Take me through the process of creating everything from the song, deciding how you would perform it vocally, to adding the track etc. Saul Williams: I wrote that song in 2002 or 2001. I wrote it in the house I'm actually still living in now in LA. I wrote the bass line. I was playing on my keyboard, going through putting filters on sounds. I was looking for a beginning. Then I started trying to find lyrics that fit it. It was an afternoon, and my daughter was in school, I hadn't gone through anything, but the lyrics just came to me that way. Beginnings are always a time to capture attention. I love beginnings. I thought it was cool and funny to start with "I want my money back" I was inspired by the music. Gave it the subtitle "Reparations", which helped me make sense of it of the song. RubyHornet: You have a CD out now called The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust. Tell me a little about it. The Name? Saul Williams: Well it's a hybrid. The physical embodiment is Barack Obama. The Inevitable Rise and Liberation is more important than niggy tardust. It is to say that anyone who has been held down, or stripped of their understanding of who they are, disenfranchised, oppressed, will inevitably rise. There's nothing anyone can do about it. The more that people are held back, it's like a rubber-band affect. You can guess that if you pull a rubber band back far—when it bounces back it’s gonna smack the s**t out of you. It doesn’t matter what name you take, the social construct of race, religion, whatever space you see yourself quarantined in. Those walls will eventually fall once you realize who you are. Maybe there’s a subconscious process to a human that we should acknowledge. RubyHornet: In your Letter to Oprah Winfrey you speak about your first exposure to the idea of an artist being held accountable for their actions outside of their art. How does this apply to you as an artist? Saul Williams: It applies to me on every level, mostly to be a well-rounded balanced individual. I don't think that I can be the artist I want to be without manifesting some things in my personal life. I realized the connection between the two. I've idolized artists like Miles Davis who have been a bit selfish in their personal lives. I love Miles Davis, but I want to be a better artist than that. I know what it is to emerge yourself deeply into what you want to say, but I want to be stable and able enough to create, and go to the supermarket, and help kids to read. RubyHornet: Finally, and advice for young artists like myself? Saul Williams: You'll dilute the power of craft if you are so concerned about saying something positive. My goal is to make good s**t, and it just so happens that my good s**t has manifested itself as positive. You gotta watch your diet: What you listen to what you read, what you watch. Compare and contrast yourself with artists you admire. Pay attention to others. Call energy into your life beyond self-editing and self-doubt. You gotta go there. That means you gotta brave the fight with your parents. Your boyfriend may think you’re selfish at some point. Whatever it takes. Watch how you talk about your relationship with your art. You have to take on your goal alchemically. It's all choices. Stop saying I'm trying. F**k trying,become. 
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