Fader Label
2004
Saul Williams
About This Album
Critics have a hard time deciding what to call Saul Williams' music -- poetic hardcore, "punk-hop." It certainly isn't straightforward hip-hop by any means. On his self-titled album, Williams moves toward a slightly more accessible format (compared to his previous, more poetry driven work) with twisted guitar lines, heavy bass thumps, and a closer stab at singing from time to time. The album opens with poetry laid over a fairly sparse piano riff, then moves into a swooping, thumping bit of electronica where Williams nearly takes on a Prodigy-type sound with his vocal swagger. Where the opening track laid poetry over a sparse track, Williams' stinging telegram to hip-hop is poetry laid over a dense, dense sound à la Public Enemy's Bomb Squad. Zack de la Rocha shows up to lend a hand on a slightly more stripped down, and yet more straightforward, piece of hip-hop perhaps, an indictment of the Iraq war and its subsequent issues -- a modern, though less melodic, What's Going On. "List of Demands," an outstandingly frenetic piece (somewhat ironically appropriated by Nike), manages to build tension gradually, then hits that elusive perfect single beat at the opening to each break.
Track List (try tracks 1,5 and 7)

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