Performed by a raucous sextet made up of beats, bass, guitar, cello, viola, and griot, Saul Williams hip-hop sounds like modern chamber music. It’s music informed as much by Hendrix’s star-strangled striations and Miles Davis’s alchemical electric period as it is the krunk-krunk of contemporary hip-hop. On Amethyst Rock Star Williams exorcises urban music of its self-destructive excess, channeling its rowdy energy into a ritualized raising of consciousness. The single “Penny for [Read More...]
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Seeing Saul Williams in the exellcent 1998 film “Slam”,
made me very intrested to see how his album,”Amethyst
Rock Star” would sound.
I’m happy to say,my intrest proved me right.
Williams’ debut is groundbreaking-to say the least.
Produced by the legendary Rick Rubin,Williams set it off with an unique brand of edgy,meaningful tracks that defy
classifaction.This no hip-hop or soul or rock.
This is just quite simply:great music.
My favorites are “1987″,on which Saul brings back some memories of the old-soul and “Penny For Your Thoughts”,
a mind-blowing track about the big numbers of rappers using music for finicinal reasons instead of artistic ones.
The music’s great but still,people are still sleeping on this.
People complain about the lack of depth in mainstream music yet,when a next-level project comes along,they ignore it.
But one thing can’t be ignored:the power of Saul Williams’
message.
Though it’s more than just hip hop, a hybrid of rock, trip hop, psychedilia, industrial, drum n’bass, all inbetween, it’s mostly related to hip hop at it’s core element. Being this it almost sounds like the farthest hip hop has gone. I dont think anyone could challenge Saul on this. Phenomenal.