Saul Williams

The past decade has seen Saul Williams emerge as one of the world's most recognized poets, as well as a rising actor and a highly acclaimed musician. In the music world, Saul made noise with some tracks in the mid to late '90s on the Eargasm and Lyricist Lounge compilations, to name a few. The songs he released during this time period were grounded in hip-hop but were a far cry from the traditional rap that was gaining popularity at the time. He released 2001's "Amethyst Rockstar," which was co-produced by Rick Rubin and won him critical acclaim all over the world (The Times of London named it best album of the year), which brings us to his latest album, simply titled "Saul Williams." In Saul's own words, "the tracks range from politics to relationships and the politics of relationships." Co-produced by Williams and Mickey P(Beck, Dust Brothers, AIR), the album features Zack de la Rocha (Rage Against The Machine), Serj Tankian (System of a Down), Ikey Owens (The Mars Volta) and Mia Doi Todd. "What I ended up with was something that captured the authoritative cool of hip-hop, the playful angst of rock and roll, the raw emotional torment of emo (and, my favorite, 'screamo'), and the fuck offness of punk."