An Interview with Saul Williams

An Interview with Saul Williams

This interview was conducted by telephone in December 2005, between Perpignan, France and London, UK.

WALSH: As far as what's going on in the hip-hop underground right now, there's been a lot of discussion of the more experimental artists. They've usually been described as "underground hip-hop run by fat white guys with beards." In one of the songs on your latest album, you seem to address this when you say:

I gave hip hop to white boys when nobody was looking.
They found it locked in a basement when they gentrified Brooklyn.
I left a list of instructions, an MPC and a mic,
my sci-fi library, and utensils to write.

As far as the sci-fi references go, those things are a large part of the criticism that those guys get. I'd like for you to expound on this a bit.

WILLIAMS: Well let me say this first of all. To me, the most interesting underground hip-hop that I'm hearing is not really what cats are calling underground. It's coming out of the south of the U.S. Yeah, there's some mainstream acts coming out of there, like Young Jeezy, or T.I., or, you know, Paul Wall and all that. Still, under them, there are real underground movements in Memphis and Atlanta, especially Atlanta right now, but, of course, the sound stems from Memphis. Those guys, the personas that they are creating, it's like the blues. Some of the most important shit to happen in hip-hop has been in the SWATs, the ghettos of Atlanta right now. And that's the underground hip-hop that cats really need to check for. Whether you check for it or not, it will be a direct b-line to the motherfucking head of the class. The shit I've heard from there is just so fucking ready and primed and so unique. As far as the Aesop, Sage, Anticon [experimental hip-hop artists and Oakland, CA hip-hop label], the stuff that I think you're referring to with your question is really cool to me. And that's just all I have to say about it.

WALSH: As far as you talking about those underground artists that you know about right now, what do you have to say about the argument that the most innovative hip-hop comes from the mainstream?

WILLIAMS: You said that the most experimental hip-hop comes out of the mainstream?

WALSH: Yeah, according to a lot of journalists.

WILLIAMS: Well, basically the experiments that work do end up making it into the mainstream, quite often. That's not even a criticism, actually. That's only a criticism if you're a loyalist to the underground as opposed to a loyalist to good shit. The fact of the matter is what Outkast has been able to accomplish is fucking untouchable by most of the cats out there and a lot of the cats under them. It's true, say like what a Pharrell does or a Ludacris does takes out a lot of the underground shit. Shit, I haven't heard anything as dope as "Bombs over Baghdad" pretty much since "Bombs over Baghdad," you know? And people go on and on about how commercial hip-hop is or how the underground kids don't get respect, but when Outkast won their honors for Stankonia and their last album, I think they were repping for the best of the mainstream and the best of the underground. Since they are so popular, it's hard for people loyal to the underground to listen to them because they feel like they're listening to top 40, but, even with that, individuals have to be able to check themselves because the fact of the matter is that they were coming as creatively as anyone without a major deal. More so, they learned to put it in a fucking...