Scenestar

ARTICLE BY JAMIE SKOWRON
PHOTOS BY VERONICA MUNOZ

While in the midst of his tour for 2012 release Volcanic Sunlight, Saul Williams sat down with The Scenestar’s Jamie Skowron for an intense conversation about the state of affairs in Williams’s life outside the U.S. and the developments inspiring his art.

Saul Williams sits down with a sigh of exhaustion and a yawn.

SS: Tired from the road?
SW: No, just tired from being in L.A. It’s one of those cities where you know too many people—there’s just no rest.

SS: The first time I heard you was at a Mars Volta show at the Wiltern. During “Eriatarka,” you came out and had an amazing verse; Cedric credited you at the end. I later Googled you and found out that you have collaborated with many other well-known musicians, such as Serj from System of a Down and Zach de la Rocha from Rage Against the Machine. What are some things that you have taken away and incorporated into your own path from such intense collaborations?
SW: That is my own thing in a sense. I actually really like collaboration; I learn a lot. Serj is a beautiful person and musician. For example, his composing on piano, on guitar…it’s like math rock. It’s inspiring. That’s why I like the Mars Volta as well. To me, that’s the same as why I liked drum and bass when it came out, because it was like math hip hop. Trent [Reznor] as well. I just never deluded myself into thinking that there wasn’t a lot more to learn, and music remains kind of fresh to me. I’ve studied theater, and I’ve studied it intensely, but my study of music has been like anybody else’s, just like a fan. I have slowly discovered that I have the capacity to make music. I have learned that often through collaboration, of course before I met those guys. But those guys are just around; they are just friends. I have never sought anybody out, and in fact, it’s the other way around. Serj sent me music and said, “I was thinking of you, and I wrote you some music. You should write to it.” And that became the introduction to my self-titled album. Zach [de la Rocha] performed with me on drum and bass, Roni Size, and DJ Krust in New York, years ago in ’98 or something, and ever since then, Zach has been like, “Yo, we gotta do something.” And when I did my first show in L.A., Zach was there, and it just kind of worked out.

SS: It seems like you come from more of a hip hop background.
SW: I do come from a hip hop background, but by the time I was 19, I had already done 10 years of hip hop, so I was ready to listen to more. And the first thing that I turned to was what the hip hop artists were sampling, like James Brown, Sly Stone… Whatever they were sampling, I would get excited figuring out where [the music] came from. And before I knew it, I was listening to Bad Brains and Jimi Hendrix and all that shit. Then we all started sharing the same influences. For example, when Rage Against the Machine first came out, I wasn’t a fan. To me, it was like watered-down Public Enemy when I first heard it. You can hear a lot of hip hop artists try to do something rock, but their rock roots aren’t as authentic. I used to hear the same thing in rock artists for years. I used to hear rock artists rapping and being like, “You didn’t grow up listening to the shit I did, but I respect what you are trying to do.” Once I started listening to more…basically by the time I met [Rage Against the Machine], I was a fan. [Laughs] I collaborated with Zach for the first time after Battle of Los Angeles, and by that time, I had learned enough to realize where the respect belonged, because I was just a narrow-headed hip hop head before. I used to get mad at rappers for having people who sing on their album. [Laughs] Everyone can be a purist in their own way, regardless of how they grow up or what they listen to. “That’s too commercial.” I was a snob. [Laughs] To me, Mars Volta was just essential. The first concoction of Mars Volta with a Haitian drummer (John Theodore) and the first two albums epitomized what I wanted to hear. When I toured with them for Deloused in the Comatorium—I did their first tour, I met them when they were At the Drive-In—and I felt like I was touring with Nirvana in ’92. I felt like I was the luckiest guy on Earth, honestly…to open up for them and do poetry and then get off stage and watch.

SS: Is that how that performance at the Wiltern came about?
SW: They always tried to get me on stage with them from the first night. I always preferred to be a spectator. I’m not really the type of guy who hears something great and says, “I want to be on that.” If I hear something great…I just don’t want to fuck it up. [Laughs] So it took that much coaxing for me to go. I hadn’t seen them in like a month, and they just kept saying, “Come on, man. Please.”

SS: In your lyrics and spoken word, you display an immense amount of conviction on a social, political, and spiritual level, which I highly respect. I believe you are one of the true artists who can speak in so many different contexts with such passion. How do you stay inspired or push yourself? Is self-competition a factor? An artist who comes to mind is Miles Davis—he was always pushing himself to do something different.
SW: I must say that I do push myself to leave my comfort zone. I was afraid to sing…but when I got my first record deal, I knew that I had never listened to a spoken word album, so I knew I had an interest in making one. From the time I got the opportunity to record, I was pushing myself to explore music. I started to do a lot of research and discovered someone like Fernando Pessoa; in music you discover someone like Fela Kuti or Nina Simone or Serg Gainsbourg. You may not even be competing with yourself, you are competing with the dead. I remember when my second album was coming out and was like OK. I was listening to Electric Ladyland. That was Jimi Hendrix’s second album. [Laughs] It’s just challenging yourself out of your comfort zone. What do you play?
SS: I play guitar.
SW: It’s also finding what you like, finding what your strengths are, and if you have the possibility of learning your weaknesses, and then learning how to create a team around you that covers your weak areas. All of that has been a learning experience for me that I have enjoyed, and it also has encouraged me to continue growing.

SS: In what ways has 9-11 changed your political scope in music, hip hop, and among you and your friends?
SW: I was heavily engaged in politics before 9-11, however, through 9-11, I have felt a greater sense of urgency. Having already traveled quite a bit at that time, I was very aware of the outward perception of the U.S. versus the inward self-consumed perception of the U.S. In light of all that we’ve discussed, I don’t have a good time at being a critic; I’d rather just be an example. For years I was disappointed with where hip hop was going and would just sit back and say, “This sucks.” I wanted to create examples of what I would listen to. In terms of politics, post 9-11, I literally was just writing to fill the void between what I was hearing and what I wish I could hear. In terms of politics and music, I knew what I felt. In 1989, when I heard Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” or “Welcome to the Terrordome,” they were talking about something that was going on politically. I knew how that felt, and if I could contribute to someone feeling how great that felt, to hear your politics blasted through a speaker at a party, I just wanted to contribute in the way that was like paying it forward. Really it’s not as many choices as you would imagine, because it’s also just what I know. In the household that I grew up in, we learned that art was powerful. Pete Seger was a family friend and sang in my father’s church. I grew up with it, artists like that. For some, it might seem like a big deal, but if you grew up in my house, you would be like, “Oh, yeah, yeah, of course.” My parents don’t say, “That’s so courageous.” My parents don’t think twice about it and feel that’s what you are supposed to do, so it’s kind of how I was raised. I had family that spoke out, I got to listen to my father speak out publicly every week as a minister and an activist, so I never had any fear. I grew up around Al Sharpton actually. I’m not a big fan or the church or religion per se, so I don’t carry that, but in the practice of speaking the fuck out, why not? But with friends, usually we are close to the same page, so with friends, it’s more jokes than anything. My friends don’t think of me as this political whatever, they think of me as whatever they think of me as…the clown, the ham, they seem me in a different light. They don’t read my fucking books. [Laughs] And I don’t really write for them. They are like, “Who reads this shit?” [Laughs] And I thank God for that, because it keeps me grounded. Now that they are getting older, they start to listen, because they have kids who are into my stuff, and now I get to get back at them. [Laughs]

SS: I know that you have moved out of the country. How does that affect your understanding of what’s going on in the U.S.?
SW: I pay really close attention to what is going on here. In fact, one of the reasons why I wanted to moved out of the country is because I lived out of the country as an exchange student when I was 16 [in Brazil], and I didn’t know it, but in retrospect, I learned more about America in that year I spent out of America than the 16 I spent inside America. So part of the reason why I was so excited to move to France with my daughter was because I wanted her to have that experience of gaining some outward-inward perspective. I also wanted to see what it looked like as an adult, the view from the outside to see what’s going on. I stepped out of it, not to excuse myself, but hoping to maybe heighten my perspective. When you step out for a second, it’s eye opening.

SS: We all live in the city, and it’s very hard, if not impossible, to exist without the use of a corporation. What can we as citizens do to defend against the maladies they project? What are your thoughts on the Occupy movement?
SW: I think it’s an individual thing, but I remember when I was 10 or 12, and my sister came home from college and said that we aren’t buying anymore Coca-Cola products because [the company is] invested in apartheid in South Africa. So it started on a family level as finding alternatives to items like Coca-Cola and Reebok. It became a game that when you learn something, you try to find a way around it. It’s another individual thing that you don’t have to publicize or announce. It’s another way to challenge these corporations, whether it be taking money out of a bank or whatever. However you choose to do it, it comes from finding the courage to step away from the mass mentality. It’s very important to remember that the Occupy movement stemmed from the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring is what started at the top of 2011, in Tunisia, in Algeria, with all the youth using Facebook to kick their president out of Egypt, and what’s happening in Syria right now—it is a reflection of that. It’s been happening since 2011, and the Occupy movement is a response to that. That’s why it started in New York; they saw how powerful it could be. And for American kids, many of whom are in service or at war and learning that terrorism is over there, that the conspiracy is over there, that fear is there—they should realize that the inspiration for that movement comes from the youth of there. The thing that was important about the movement in Algeria and in the Middle East was that when you saw those kids on TV in the square, you realized that they didn’t have beards and the turbans and this image. Some of them did, but there were some of them who were like, “Dude, don’t believe what your country tells you about me. I’m here with my iPhone saying fuck this shit.” And it’s up to us to do the same thing, and it’s up to us to inform each other. I think it’s really important for American youths to realize their connection to youths around the world, especially since American culture is influential and popular, and so hip and hyped. The very least Americans can do is put out some cool shit, so they don’t pollute the world with bad art or with bad products. That’s the thing about the Occupy movement that I think is important, that they are doing something in collaboration with Middle Eastern youth and youth around the world. It’s important to realize that we are connected to them and not at war. That’s what upsets me the most when I hear about the Occupy movement, because in America, we have this great skill of branding things, and so we have re-branded the Arab Spring the Occupy movement—but it was the Arab Spring from the beginning. When we branded it, we made it as if it was this American homegrown thing…and it’s not.

SS: That situation sounds very familiar.
SW: Exactly!

SS: As time progresses, so has your music. From “Twice the First Time” (Xen Cuts) to Volcanic Sunlight, there has been a noticeable shift of direction.
SW: “Twice the First Time” was actually the very first time I ever recorded, and I was disappointed because I had written something new, and the producer whom I was supposed to be collaborating with wanted to work with a beat he made 10 years prior. I thought we were gonna make music together, and he gave this old track. So I threw away what I had written, and I started singing, “I will not rhyme on tracks…” And what happened was that when he heard what I had done, where I purposely accented the off beats, he created a new track around it, which was what I wanted in the first place. Miles tried to play like a singer; Kerouac tried to write like a horn player, and me, I’m trying to write like a drum. I’m listening to where I put my voice, I’m playing with format, whether it is like a drum role or whatever. I’m playing with style, ways of brushes and strokes. Poetry is very connected to the idea of rhythm, which I have a lot of fun with. It’s kind of like swimming.

SS: To what extent does psyche project what you have been inspired by? When you are writing poetry or rhymes, what role does your inspired self play in creating your inspiring self?
SW: That’s the fuel that I run off of, inspiration. “Inspire” comes from Latin: “spire” means to breathe, “inspire” means to breathe in, “expire” means to breathe out, and “suspire” means to stop breathing. So inspiration is not some far-fetched thing to me. I’m inspired by being alive, by being in love. I’m inspired by being a dad, good literature, fresh juice, things like good conversation, and sometimes in those moments come epiphanies. Catching epiphanies is like catching butterflies, and that’s what I’m essentially doing. That’s what my inspired self is feeding off of—those epiphanies. Like, “In fact he lets me call him me.” Just those epiphanies of insight that come from studying, questioning, dialogue, and meditating on the existing state of affairs.

SS: Are there any musicians, books or visual artists whom you would like to clue readers in to?
SW: Louise Bourgeois. I’m inspired by her age and the slow progression of her work. Same thing with Maya Angelou, whose first book came out when she was 42. I’m inspired by the courage of someone like Fela [Kuti], and there’s a lot to talk about Fela these days. Take the album Coffin for Head of State, in which his mother was essentially killed by Nigerian soldiers. He then carried his mother’s coffin to the president’s house with a parade and people singing, “You killed her. You bury her…” I’d like to see Guns N’ Roses do that. [Laughs] That’s rock and roll, that’s punk rock. I’m also inspired by punk rock in all facets, not just Sex Pistols, The Ramones, and Bad Brains. I’m inspired by true rebellion, rebellious energy, rebellious writers, rebellious spirits from everyone you know. The Patti Smiths of the world to the fucking Virginia Woolfs to the Gloria Steinems to the Audrey Lordes. You know, just the people who found the courage to voice something, whether they were ignored or celebrated. Either way I’m inspired by the voices that cut through the bullshit and said cool shit. I like reading a lot… I’m inspired by filmmakers like Jean- Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Korney Chukovsky, Spike Lee, Maya Deren, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini, Jim Jarmusch, John Cassavetes, just straight filmmakers who beat the system. Woody Allen beats the system, too. Paul Robeson, artists who realize the power of art. Like Charlie Chaplin, who had a perspective against Nazism and the dictator before the American government took a perspective on it; Chaplin shifted public opinion. We were still allies with Germany when his film The Dictator came out; and he got labeled as a communist and suffered as a result, but those great voices inspire me. I could take it to Tzu, Jesus, and Buddha—those guys are awesome, too. Sufi poets like Hafiz and Rumi. Black arts poets like Leroy Jones, Gil-Scott Heron, the people who had the courage to be cool. You know, The Clash, the fucking Clash, Trent Reznor. All that shit is inspiring to me. I’m also inspired by fashion designers, people who find a way to contribute to humanity in creative ways, because it’s different practices of nonviolence. Nonviolence is not simply not fighting; you can do the practice of it through music—it’s all just another way of practicing nonviolence. Even moments inspire me, like traveling without money, backpacking, jumping into shit where you don’t know what’s going to happen, like going to see shows even though it’s in the ghetto, because you know you have to hear it. Courage is what inspires me.

SS: Thank you for your time. It has been a pleasure and an honor.

Photo by Veronica Munoz of Saul Williams at the El Rey Theatre