THE FESTIVA INTERVIEW: Saul Williams

Saul Williams’s work defies description. It practically dares critics and journalists to define him, to peg what he does best.

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“Spoken word poet” could certainly fit him. Search “Saul Williams poetry” on YouTube. Blistering, goosebump-inducing performances pop up. Williams ranks as perhaps the greatest talent to grace the stage on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. The documentary SlamNation also chronicled Williams and other young poets in the mid ‘90s.

To call him just a spoken word poet, however, would ignore his career in music, a career that has scene him collaborate and tour with Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor. Williams has also worked with industry über-producer Rick Rubin, and as he tells Festiva in a recent interview, he’s currently crafting a project with Dave Sitek, who produced and played on last year’s critically acclaimed TV on the Radio album Dear Science.

Williams has also performed at major music festivals including Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and Coachella, which included Williams’s set in a DVD documentary. So Saul Williams is a musician then? Not exactly.

He has starred in films, written for The New York Times and Esquire, and remained active politically, denouncing the Bush administration and the war in Iraq.

No one term precisely describes the man; we’ll call him a musician/spoken word poet/actor/activist/author. Williams, who is not currently touring and spent his summer acclimating to a new home in France, will play a one-off show Saturday night at the Cine El Rey.

Williams recently answered interview questions from Paris via e-mail. With any other artist, it’d be a shame to not speak with him over the phone. And while Williams surely would have given a great verbal interview, he could be the one artist capable of delivering more interesting responses through the written word.

SAUL WILLIAMS
WITH: DirtyBox, The GoLightly Project, Methmare Motorcade, DJ Skootr
WHERE: Cine El Rey, 311 S. 17th St., McAllen
WHEN: 7:30 p.m., Saturday
COST: $20 at the door, $12 pre-sale online
BUY TICKETS: www.ez-tixx.com
ONLINE: www.lovehurtsmusic.com

Q: I thought the Niggy Tardust album was intense, imaginative, important – take your pick. What’s next for you as an artist? As a musician?

A: I never truly know what’s next, although I’m pretty clear on my intent. My intent is to continue to challenge myself beyond my comfort zones, to remain a student of life and of humanity, and to express what I learn, what I feel, and what I think I can or should be shared with all who choose to read, watch or listen. Music remains a very strong part of my creative discipline. It helps me monitor my growth and growing interests, brings me out of my shell and allows me to embody my ongoing transformation. My music – post-Niggy – is exactly what Tardust fought to be: Free. I haven’t written any songs from anger on my new project, and that’s what I’m most excited about.

Q: I read an interview where you mentioned that Trent Reznor was interested in doing a sequel to Niggy Tardust. And that you’d spoken with Dave Sitek about collaborating. Has either of those ideas progressed at all?

A: I haven’t done any new songs with Trent, but I have laid down several ideas with Sitek. We’re good friends and vibe really well together. However, the stuff we’ve worked on feels like a separate project than my forthcoming album. I generated a lot of ideas before we started working and strongly sense that it’s important for me to clarify my vision, for myself in the spaces that follow working with mega producers like Reznor. I followed my first album, produced by Rick Rubin, with a self-produced album, which helped me regain my footing on what I wanted from my music. I plan on following my Reznor-produced project in the same way. These guys have been mentors and have taught me a great deal, which I am more than anxious to put into action as I further develop my sound.

Q: You released your last album online using the optional-payment method. What was that experience like for you?

A: It was the first time I didn’t feel weighed down by the thought of how much or how little money a label spent to promote my project. I felt, as I had when I first started reading my poetry aloud, like I was part of a movement. And that movement was and is the paradigm shift that puts the power back into our hands, as artists, as people and is responsible for many of the changes of power we are witnessing today. The people that are set up to help artists, like those who work at labels, publicity, distribution companies and the like, are an essential part of the formula, yet it was extremely empowering to deal directly with people and trust their instinct and judgment after having had the experience of being subject to the instinct and judgment of executives whose “bottom line” sometimes forced them to be less than visionary.

Q: Music and the way people consume it has changed so drastically. How do you think politics, messages and social awareness will fit into music in the future?

A: The way it always has: unexpectedly and strong.

Q: I read on Twitter that you have been spending some time in France. What have you been involved with there?

A: I moved to Paris this summer. I’ve been recording, eating croissants, drinking coffee and enjoying the skyline from my roof. My daughter started school here last week. So I guess I’ll be doing some homework, too.

Q: Many of your fans that I’ve met respect your opinions, lifestyle and politics as much as your music. Would you care to write a bit about some of the larger issues facing our city and the border area? The first would obviously be the United States policy and treatment of Mexican immigrants and the construction of the border wall.

A: Countries are like corporations. They must exist within a controlled environment and a controlled set of boundaries. To pre-suppose that a country will not enforce its laws and boundaries is counterintuitive. The most we can do is maintain the expectation that our law keepers will follow through with the compassionate logic that enhances our connection to the global community. Walls are built to be crumbled. The poor and oppressed will never have any problem with that. The high numbers of those crossing the border from Mexico implies something closer to a humanitarian issue. If America is sanctuary then we must keep its doors open. In regards to illegal trafficking, legalizing weed would stop a lot of that.

Q: The second would be domestic violence…

A: My concern with domestic violence is related to the die-hard capitalism inbred into the American value system and its impact on how we are socialized to think as men, through society, religion, and of course, in our homes. Learning how to restrain one’s sense of violence is not as easily remedied by hunting, boxing and the legal ways one may release their urge to kill. There must be a consistent internal questioning that replays values enforced through media and propaganda that disposes of the unnecessary bulk of what we’re told. These are times of high stress and we should monitor our levels, gauge our responses when buttons are pushed. Our tendency towards the robotic proves freedom to be a discipline. So we must be sure not to act out of anger when actions are better contemplated. Pride and ego must be diffused before the engine over heats. If men were cars there’d be a recall on several generations. The modern man will grow to see such violence as old.

Q: Also, the Obama question. It’s been nearly a year now. How do you think the president has done?

A: Overall, I think he’s putting up a good fight in aiming towards a progressive balance. I don’t envy his position with the 24-hour news cycle and the celebrity appeal that has come with the hard job. I do not believe that we can fix the wrongs of our policies in one term or with one man, unless that man counts as a symbol of each and every one of us and the progressive changes we are bringing to our own individual lives. The biggest changes that need to happen in our or any nation are within each individual. So how good of a job do you think you’ve done thus far this year?

Q: Can you tell me a bit about your writing process?

A: I simply write to the music. When a piece of music inspires me, I write what I feel it provokes in me. I probably spend as much time writing music as I do writing the lyrics that accompany it (and probably as much or more time reading and listening to music). What I’m looking for in sound is very close to what I’m looking for with words. I build sound scapes and then try to fill them in as I see fit. Mostly, I’m just looking for something new, something I haven’t heard before juxtaposed with something I hear everyday and combined with something I must hear. With new sounds come new thoughts, new ways of thinking, new things to express, new gestures and body movements, new dances, new disciplines, new fields of study…It’s a continual process. I journal my thoughts sporadically and find it easy to start dancing mid-conversation. It’s the musicality of life that I’m after. And sometimes words, they get in the way. But if we must use them, make ‘em pretty. Make them jump off the page and spit in the face. Make ‘em dance through headlines until hate is lowercased.

Zack Quaintance covers features and entertainment for Festiva. You can reach him at (956) 683-4447.