Through The Eyes of Saul Williams

The aggressive poet/musician Saul Williams released a new album called MartyrLoserKing. The title of the album is a mispronunciation of ‘Martin Luther King’, a perfect title to describe the symbolism of the essence of the album.

Williams is a man of many words, words that will pierce your ears about oppressed people and his overall concern of human life in this current generation. He is a powerful poet, actor, activist and a musician. In his songs, Williams continually addresses the world through his own eyes. Some may argue that he is like any other lyrical music artist that portrays the “oppressed people” in this decade, but Williams takes his own original approach to self-expression, with his genuine compassion and aggression in the words of his music.

There isn’t a specific genre of music to describe Saul Williams’ style, but in total it is a blend of hip-hop, dance and punk. The mixture of hip-hop and tribal beats to each song naturally flow with the lyrics Williams formulates.

MartyrLoserKing is an album that is different for the hip-hop genre as a whole, something your ear won’t stop wanting to hear. The song “The Noise Came From Here” has a traditional African chanting in the background of the song, and his words in the song dance and are in sync with the tribal music.

“Down For Some Ignorance” begins somewhat as a lullaby. The repetitive words “down for some ignorance” at the end of every line of his verse draws you into the next verse. The song is only 2:23 minutes long. Each line describes what is happening around the world and the “ignorance” of people, for example, “puppets of religion down for some ignorance…guns over peace down for some ignorance…” It’s essentially a spoken word poem.

In order to fully grasp how Williams sees the world, the best thing to do is listen to MartyrLoserKing.