Return of a Firebrand: Saul Williams on MartyrLoserKing

Saul Williams is relaxed, sitting patiently on a white armchair. The only giveaway sign that he has just played a blistering set of songs taken from his brilliant new album is his darting, alert eyes, which suggest that he would hate to miss something important. “Finbarr. Fin-barr,” he ruminates after a brief introduction. “Is that one word, or two?” It’s a line of questioning he returns to a few minutes later (“Where does that come from?”), despite best efforts to shuffle the conversation towards something more significant, and he can be heard mouthing “Finbarr” repeatedly after our interview is complete.

"I wanted to create a world in which things are challenged"

It adds to the impression that, for Williams the artist, the world is his canvas, with every new sight and sound a potential ingredient in whatever he happens to be creating, or thinking about creating. Right now, his creation is MartyrLoserKing (MLK), a cross-format project combining an excellent album, a graphic novel in collaboration with renowned comic book artist Ron Wimberly, and a movie – all of which will be unleashed simultaneously. Like everything Williams has done in his career, it’s hugely ambitious.

SLAM CHAMP BEGINNINGS

Williams first came to prominence in the mid-90s as a slam poet, becoming the Grand Slam Champion at the Nuyorican Poets Café, an institution in the arts community of New York's Lower East Side. The documentary SlamNation followed his Slam team’s progress in the National Poetry Slam in Portland in 1996 and Williams’ star as a poet rose further when he wrote and acted in the award-winning Slam in 1998.

It was around this time that the chameleonic New Yorker started making serious strides in the music business. A series of high-profile collaborations, appearing with everyone from De La Soul and Allen Ginsberg to Nas and Rage Against the Machine, and a string of EPs preceded the 2001 release of Amethyst Rock Star, a restless, proggy, breakneck set recorded with Rick Rubin – a marriage of poetry and industry that has transcended much of Williams’ recorded output since.

The following self-titled set of 2004 announced Williams the agitator on an expectant music world. Taking aim at the US-led invasion of Iraq, the state of contemporary hip-hop (“This shit has gone too far… stop!”) and high school bullies, this was a window into his conscience that set the scene for what is – arguably – his magnum opus: The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust, three years later.

Niggy… was a pay-what-you-like release recorded with Trent Reznor (who revealed post-release that only 18% of downloaders paid anything). It bristled with ambition and frustration and presented Williams as a firebrand par excellence, railing against the establishment, challenging our perceptions of freedom and raising serious questions about black identity in 21st-century America, all while Kanye was rounding off his tetralogy of 'education' albums.

MAKING MARTYRLOSERKING

While 2011’s Volcanic Sunlight was a self-confessed “dance album” and one “about love,” MLK – his first release for four years – reacquaints us with Williams as a malcontent. The middle finger that graces the artwork sets the tone for a concept project about the eponymous hacker from Burundi. The choice of protagonist was very deliberate: Burundi has been in the grip of conflict since the early 1990s. Williams’ suggestion that a hacker packing as much punch as Snowden and Banksy combined could emerge from such an environment is a commentary on how the internet has changed the game, but is also set to challenge the listener’s preconceptions. This was the premise under which the project was conceived.

“I wanted to create a world in which things are challenged,” he says. “Musically it came about from the type of stuff I was listening to. I was listening to a lot of real electronic music coming out of Congo, Angola and Mozambique. Not necessarily the pop stuff but the underground stuff I could get my hands on. I started playing with this album about two years ago sonically, trying to create a world. A world, being a soundscape. Sonically, it’s been really fun, exploring the music that I was loving at that time.”

For a man so draped in creativity, it is natural that the art forms will collide. A serial collaborator, on MLK the walls between his media have – and he says it was initially set to be a stage musical.

“One of the things I wanted to do was create a project that has all of these things combined. I started to think of the idea of a musical, a story, a concept, a premise… a place where music and performance could all intertwine. It started with a play idea, it’s moved to a film idea, but yes, it’s definitely about all those things, a way to bring those things together. But also the story, primarily because there was a lot of stuff I wanted to talk about. I couldn’t choose one topic,” Williams explains.

The topics are indeed plentiful, and they’re often angry and visceral – a feeling that’s enhanced enormously by seeing him play the songs live. The whole idea of conflict and of protest has changed in 2016. Contrary to the previous century, in which revolutions had clear leaders and battles were drawn across clear lines, with physical limits and parameters, the lines are more subversive now. The Arab Spring was propelled by Twitter. The Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong was organised by a few students over Telegram, while the establishment attacks with unmanned drones and cyber hacks.

A PRESCIENT PROTEST

War and its byproducts have transcended visibility. In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, the aphorism “you can’t bomb an idea” emerged on social media in regard to the militaristic response. On Burundi, the excellent single that precedes MLK, Williams roars: “I'm a candle, I'm a candle / Chop my neck a million times, I still burn bright and stand, yo.” It’s a powerful chorus line and hammers home the ferocity of the themes on board.

“Yeah, I realised tonight when going through some of the songs that I kept on hitting the nail in terms of topic,” he says, after performing for one of the few times in his career in the Asia continent “I was like: ‘Oh fuck, there’s really no break.’ I don’t know if that’s good or not good. It’s definitely very personal and it’s intimate. It’s for the public, obviously. With good speakers, it’s actually really big. I like how it sounds. I wanna hear it. I think anyone who has a chance to encounter it, encounters something. I feel like music and poetry, art in itself, always has this edge when it comes to translation. Like paintings for example. I think of music very much like paintings, with sounds. I think those things transcend language barriers.”

It’s unsurprising to hear that a follow-up album is already demoed. The themes explored here aren’t going anywhere. At the time of writing, Donald Trump has just called for Muslims to be refused entry to the USA, and France is leading a coalition of airstrikes in Syria. 

For Williams, the album and what spawned it is a moveable feast.

“Yeah, this isn’t going anywhere and when they do move, shake or tremble it only brings more life to the idea. You can hear it in the music – I’m way more patient with how these things unfold. I like Leonard Cohen for example. If you listen to his most recent album, his songs are simply moving together sometimes, it’s such a graceful practice, but I think it also comes to patience. It comes from your experience but you also have to yearn for it. MLK is more like a title or a brand, there’s a lot. A lot of ideas are very interesting if you follow them through. When the imagination is involved, playing with those ideas, there’s definitely great work that comes out of that as an artist.”