Saul Williams’ new album, “The Inevitable Rise Of Niggy Tardust” was released yesterday online in a similar fashion to the last Radiohead album a few weeks back. I’d heard a bit about this and being a fan a Saul’s and it’s notorious producer Trent Reznor, well I was pretty much sold before even hearing it. I paid the five bucks knowing it was going to a deserving artist and that many middlemen were being cut out of this transaction. Yesterday the download link arrived in my inbox and I give it a spin. I am impressed, very impressed. I did cringe a little when I seen there was a cover version of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” on the tracklisting but it turned out to be a good track. The album has a great energy to it and even though I don’t like to compare music so much to others, sometimes it is the best way to describe it. So this album has a combination of the best elements of Jimi Hendrix, NIN, Ministry, Gill Scott Heron, NWA , Public Enemy, Faith No More to name just a few flavours I hear here. But all in all this is Saul. My top 3 on this are Break, WTF? and No One Ever Does. But that’s likely to change! I recommend this.
Also check out his open letter to Oprah on his myspace blog for a look into the inspired mind of Saul Williams. These are profound words from a great human being and it has received an influx of positive comments and well wishes. Read it and keep.
Big up to the man, the poet.
From the website…
The wall of sound that we’ve created is tagged with such graffiti that a passerby would seek out doors and ways to ENTER. Once inside a world defined by dreams come true they’d find aligned with the simplest act of sharing what we treasure. Most people aren’t aware of the world of art and commerce where exploitation strips each artist down to nigger. Each label, like apartheid, multiplies us by our divide and whips us ’til we conform to lesser figures. What falls between the cracks is a pile of records stacked to the heights of talents hidden from the sun. Yet the energy they put into popularizing smut makes a star of a shiny polished gun.
