Saul Williams

Saul Williams has been breaking ground since his debut album, Amethyst Rock Star, was released in 2001 and executive produced by Rick Rubin. After gaining global fame for his poetry and writings at the turn of the century, Williams has performed in over 30 countries and read in over 300 universities, with invitations that have spanned from the White House, the Sydney Opera House, Lincoln Center, The Louvre, The Getty Center, Queen Elizabeth Hall, to countless, villages, townships, community centers, and prisons across the world. The Newburgh, New York native gained a BA from Morehouse and an MFA from Tisch, and has gone on to record with Nine Inch Nails and Allen Ginsburg, as well as countless film and television appearances. Most recently, Williams’ released his latest music works entitled, Encrypted & Vulnerable (July 2019), which acts as the score to his forth-coming directorial debut musical, Neptune Frost. Source

Indigo On

…and you don’t stop

and you don’t stop

and you don’t…

stop letting cities define you

confine you to that which is cement and brick

we are not a hard peoples

our domes have been crowned

with the likes of steeples

that which is our being soars with the eagles

and the Jonathan Livingston Seagulls

yes, I got wings

you got wings

alas God chillun got wings.

So lets widen the circumference of our nest

And escape this urban incubator

The wind plays the world like an instrument

Blows through trees like flutes

But trees don’t grow in cement

And as heart beats bring percussion

Fallen trees bring repercussions

Cities play upon our souls like broken drums

We drum the essence of creation from city slums

But city slums mute our drums

And our drums become hum drum

‘cause city slums

have never been where our drums are from

just the place where our daughters and sons

become offbeat heartbeats

slaves to city streets

where hearts get broken

when heart beats stop

broken heartbeats become breakbeats

for niggas to rhyme on top

but they rhyme about nothing

they don’t have nothing to rhyme about

‘cause they’ve never seen the moon

your styles can’t be universal

if your not intoned with the wind.

Published:

2009

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Spoken Word

Anthology Years:

2021

Themes:

Ars Poetica