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 a 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.
"African Student Movement" uses a backbeat to produce something that might have fit into a stray
Busta Rhymes album, but with what might be a
Fela sample thrown in before it builds into a full-fledged chant. There's a little bit of a subtle
Outkast vibe in
"Black Stacey," a slurry cadence in the beat-heavy
"PG," and an interesting interplay between plaintive cries of lyrics and a deep, minor structure in
"Surrender." Amid some squawking,
"Control Freak" mixes a hard snare with fairly sparse vocals. After one more run of
spoken word poetry, the album ends on a somber note with
"Notice of Eviction," which once again ramps up to a denser sound before it finishes. The album, like
Williams in general, is difficult to categorize. However, that difficulty to categorize is symptomatic of a wider variety of sound. Essentially all of the lyrical content is built upon
Williams'
poetry, largely sociocultural commentary and protest. What that
poetry is laid over, however, is a wild variety of sound, from sparse to dense, droopingly slow to frantically fast. It's not mainstream
hip-hop as much as an outright rejection of the excesses and lack of attention in much of contemporary
hip-hop. Despite being more mainstream than his previous work, this one isn't going to be grabbing people from the radio. Once it gets a listen though, it's likely to seduce listeners and turn them into fans. ~ Adam Greenberg
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