THE PLEDGE OF RESISTANCE
Saul Williams tops our debut feature of liberty-loving artists

Saul Williams is a poet and what pop culture calls a “conscious rapper” — a guy who freestyles about social issues instead of money, violence and women. With a couple of poetry books published, he makes most of his living on spoken-word tours. Most find his music tough on the ears because it’s abrasive and not incredibly melodic. We find it appropriate for these watered-down days of preaching acceptance while bombing our brown neighbors in the Middle East. 

After graduating from Morehouse College with a B.A. in philosophy, Williams moved to New York City to earn a Master’s Degree at New York University in acting. Here he found himself at the center of the New York cafe poetry scene. By 1995, he had become a talented open-mic poet and in 1996 he won the title of Nuyorican Poets Cafe’s Grand Slam Champion. Fame on the spoken-word circuit led him to the lead role in the 1998 feature film Slam, which won both the Sundance Festival Grand Jury Prize and the Cannes Camera D’Or, introducing Williams to international audiences. 

After releasing a string of EPs, in 2001 he released the much-hyped Amethyst Rock Star with producer Rick Rubin and in September 2004 his self-titled album to much acclaim. He also appeared on Nine Inch Nails’ album Year Zero, and supported the group on their 2006 North American tour, during which Williams announced that Trent Reznor would co-produce his next album — 2007’s The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!

He is a vocal critic of the Bush administration, the war on terrorism and the Iraq War. On this fifth anniversary of war in Iraq (and Williams’ mainstream discovery via Nike and its ad on “My better is better than your better”), we feel Saul deserves the complete spot in Liberty Watch’s debut “Free-style” section.

Chew on these Saul Williams lyric selections:

“The Pledge of Resistance”
Album: Not in My Name (2003)
Not in our name will you wage endless war 
There can be no more deaths
No more transfusions of blood for oil
Not in our name will you invade countries, bomb 
civilians, kill more children, letting history take 
its course over the graves of the nameless
Not in our name will you erode the very freedoms 
you have claimed to fight for
Not by our hands will we supply weapons and 
funding for the annihilation of families on 
foreign soil

“List of Demands”
Album: Saul Williams (2004)
I got a list of demands
Written on the palm of my hands
I ball my fist and you’re gonna know where I stand
We’re living hand to mouth!
You wanna be somebody?
See somebody?
Try and free somebody