"Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it." - Ernest Holmes

~~~

SAUL WILLIAMS interview and illustration by vinnie baggadonuts

FOR ALMOST THE ENTIRE HALF-HOUR I CHATTED WITH SAUL WILLIAMS, I FORGOT I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A JOURNALIST OF SOME SORT. I WAS MORE INTERESTED IN PICKING HIS BRAIN, ASKING ABOUT SPIRITUALITY, COMMUNICATION, AND EXPRESSION. HE'S A MAN WHOM I RESPECT MORE THAN ALMOST ANYONE I'VE EVER INTERVIEWED. TOO BAD I KINDA KILLED THE MOOD BY ASKING THE TYPICAL "DOG LIPS" QUESTION. SORRY ABOUT THAT, SAUL. YOU DESERVED A MUCH BETTER ENDING. READ ON, MY CHILDREN, BECAUSE THIS IS A GOOD ONE.

Vinnie: Before asking any questions, I gotta tell you-- this is totally unprofessional-- but I’m a little bit nervous talking to you.

Saul: Why?

V: I’m very intimidated by intelligence.

S: Well, you got nothing to worry about here.

Both: (laugh)

V: Well, I really appreciate and respect what you do. I remember this thing you wrote for Urb magazine, about your love for the written word. You don’t hear people talking about the written word in our culture much anymore.

S: Well, here’s what we should do: We need to formulate the whole-- well, maybe not the interview itself, but the way it's documented, from the perspective of you hate me, and I won you over.

V: (laughing) Alright. Let me start it that way then.

S: (laughing) Okay.

V: I’ll start over. Should I call you “Mr. Williams” then, to make it seem more hateful?

S: (laughing) No. Please call me Saul.

V: Alright. Well, this is starting off kind of odd anyway, because your work is very confident and very serious. But here we are, having laughed this entire time. Do people make a misconception about you, that you’re serious all the time?

S: Oh, I’m sure they do. I think right now I’m on somewhat of a humor mission. I’ve just been laughing a lot, enjoying it. But I’ve always laughed a lot. So, yeah. I don’t think it has anything to do with other people, though. It has to do with me. It’s all in how you carry yourself. You carry yourself as serious to be taken seriously. And that’s cool. But I can sometimes be taken as a comedian. Perhaps more readily.

V: Well, your new book is out (, said the shotgun to the head.), and, man, it’s amazing. I think it took me two or three reads to figure out what it was doing to my brain. (laughs) There’s just so much going on, it felt like it was painting inside my head.

S: Wow!

V: Every now and again I would have to stop, because certain parts just made me want to paint!

S: Wow. That’s beautiful!

V: And I think that, for me, the book was different from your album (Amethyst Rock Star) or your previous book, She, because it was talking about a lot of things I’ve been thinking about lately-- questions of spirituality-- who is “God”, and things like that. I’ve never been a very religious or spiritual man. But, lately, I’ve been trying to understand more things and answer more of my own questions about such things, and your book opened up little doors.

S: Actually, the book is, in many ways, a collection of questions. And it doesn’t really aim to pose any serious answers. Answers are usually there for you to accept or refuse, which, either way, it doesn’t really matter. What really matters is that the individual reader begins to raise questions for themselves. You know? And in that respect, it serves somewhat as a bit of a Trojan horse. (laughs)

V: Yeah?

S: It’s really there to encourage you to write your own book.

V: Well, what triggered you to start writing this book?

S: Um,.. I don’t know. I started it three years ago, right around the time I was ending She. And I was just working on a new poem. I wasn’t thinking of it as a book. I was just writing a new poem that began with the first page of the book-- “Citizens, children of the night,..”-- and having no idea what it was. But I knew that I meant to incorporate a lot of the ideas that I had touched on in all my earlier pieces. I was looking to write some sort of piece that was inclusive of many of my beliefs. And I aimed for it just to be a poem that was going to document where I was at that time.

V: Yeah?

S: That was four years ago, and I was writing and writing, and it turned into,.. (pauses) somehow I ended up talking about Kali. I knew that I was writing about a female messiah. Somehow, that messiah turned into Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction and creation. Then 9/11 happened, and she (Kali) was perfectly in place.

V: The page where the man and woman meet in the towers, I think that was a transition for me in the book, where it was literally like 9/11-- this dramatic turn, where the questions seem to shift gears a bit. In the beginning there’s this discovery, where the man is proclaiming he’s seen God, he’s experienced God.

S: Right.

V: And then, in the buildings, it’s the same thing: he’s experiencing God, only there’s destruction all around him.

S: Exactly!

Both: It was--

V: Go ahead.

S: No, go ahead.

V: Well, it had a bit of a physical effect on me. The same way a movie is supposed to have some sort of effect on you with all their massive special effects. But it never really works because you’re so desensitized to it.

S: Yeah. I wrote that piece a couple of months after 9/11. Maybe four or five months after it sunk in a bit. And it was a writing exercise I gave to myself based on,.. (pauses) you know, I saw those people jumping and holding hands as they fell, and I just wanted to write a little something in honor and in connection to them, because there’s something so beautiful about that.

V: Yeah.

S: To see those people holding hands, there’s something really beautiful about that. So, there was that image, and the realization of what the word “kamikaze” meant-- “divine wind”. The whole idea of these two people meeting each other, falling in love, and never saying a word. And then, the first time they physically touch, they brush shoulders, the first boom happens, and they have associated it with themselves.

Both: (laugh)

S: Good old chemistry.

V: Which is absolutely human, too. When you’re in love, you tend to feel like the whole world happens for you.

S: Yeah. It’s pretty crazy.

V: So, you mentioned Kali. Did you study different religions?

S: Yeah, on my own. I’ve just always been interested by it. I guess my latest interest has been in just spirituality, and spiritual practice. And in searching for the spiritual practice that suits me best, I’ve often pulled from different religious practices. I find that a lot of what suits me comes from Hinduism and Buddhism, as many of us do. I think we pull from the East a great deal. It’s almost like we had a team of experts in the field of spirituality, and we sent them to the East and said, “Okay, you guys, work on that.” They did a great job. We can benefit ourselves by looking to the East for greater understanding and depth of our spiritual connection to reality.

V: Yeah.

S: And it’s funny, because the word “disoriented”-- which is what the West has become--

Both: (laugh)

S: --actually means “turned away from the East.”

V: Really?

S: “Orient” means “East”, and “disoriented” means “turned away from the East.”

Both: (laugh)

S: And that’s what the book is all about: disorientation. I love the quote at the beginning of the book by Paul Robeson: “The man who accepts Western values so absolutely finds his creative faculties so warped,.. he takes his own life.”

Both: (laugh)

V: See, I loved the quote below it, from Eduardo Galeano. (“I can’t sleep. There is a woman stuck between my eyelids. I would tell her to get out if I could. But there is a woman stuck in my throat.”)

S: Oh, yeah!

V: I’d never heard of him before, and--

S: Whoo!

V: Man!

S: Get that book! The Book of Embraces.

V: Really?

S: Oh my God!

V: Is there an English translation of it? When I looked him up, all I could find were Spanish versions of his books.

S: Oh, it’s in English, for sure. You will be so thankful.

V: (laughs)

S: You will be so very thankful.

V: Was he someone you just discovered? Or did someone say, “Hey, Saul! You should really check this out.”

S: Someone said, “Saul, you should really check this out.”

V: (laughs)

S: Twice! It happened to me twice! The first time, it was over a year ago. A stranger walked up to me at a poetry reading and said, “You know, you’ve moved me a lot, and this is something else that’s moved me. And I want to connect the two of you." So he handed me a book of his (Galeano). I think it was called Upside Down. I’m not sure. But, I read that book, and couldn’t believe it! And then I ended up giving it away to a friend. And then, right when I finished , said the shotgun to the head., and was looking for another quote, a friend of mine who I was doing a play with told me the quote that’s in the book. And I was like, “Where is that from?!?” I couldn’t believe it. And it was a really crazy time because I mentioned something that she had been looking for at the same time. So we drove to a bookstore right then and there, and I found The Book of Embraces. Found that poem on page 92.

V: So, you were already in the midst of writing , said the shotgun,.. when you found this quote?

S: Oh, I was done.

V: You were done with it completely?

S: Yeah. Can you hold on one second?

V: Yeah.

[SAUL TALKS TO SOMEONE IN THE ROOM]

S: Hello.

V: Hello?

S: My girlfriend wants to know if I want to battle Wyclef tonight.

Both: (laugh)

S: Oh, God,...

V: Are you?

S: I have to call when I’m done with this. Talk to him and see. I’ve never met him.

V: Oh, really? Do you get a lot of calls like that? (laughing) Where artists are like--

S: (laughing) --“Do you wanna battle somebody?” That’s hilarious.

V: I forget what I was even asking you.

S: Quotes?

V: Quotes. Well, the reason I ask you that is, earlier this month, I had a similar situation where I interviewed a musician who placed a quote in his album. He had written a song with a title similar to lines from the quote, and both the song and the quote expressed the same sentiment. But he had discovered the quote after he had written the song.

S: Well, that’s something I do experience a great deal of-- pure synchronicity. Which, in all of its purity and simplicity, would appear to be very complex to those outside of my world. I experience a great deal of synchronicity on a level that some people might call miracles.

V: Really?

S: I guess maybe because I aim to experience it, but also because I know it’s there. And so I just tune in. But there’s always a great deal of synchronicity.

V: Such as?

S: Oh, gosh,.. I don’t know. (laughing) I could never,.. in this forum, I can’t think of any stories I could tell you that I’d want to put out there.

Both: (laugh)

V: I don’t have to print it. I’m just personally curious.

S: No, no. It’s just in synchronicity of, like, people I’ve met and when and how we met and what we were both thinking of beforehand when we bumped into each other-- those sorts of things happen all the time. Books falling off of shelves in bookstores, that wind up being these books that change my life. I came across Terra Nostra like that. Carlos Fuentes. Every time a Radiohead album comes out, the songs speak directly to where I am in my life.

V: Yeah, I can understand that. I can relate. As I get older, I notice it more. So, with writing the book, have you had a chance to write anymore music at all?

S: Oh, tons! Hold on one second. I want to make sure this isn’t the next interview. Hold on one moment.

V: Okay.

[SAUL TAKES A CALL ON THE OTHER LINE]

S: Hello.

V: Hello?

S: Sorry about that.

V: It’s okay.

S: What were you saying?

V: Music. New music.

S: Oh! A great deal. I mean, I wrote the book over the course of four years. I wrote my album during that time, and a bunch of stuff. The book was not the only thing I was working on. It was after 9/11 that I realized that the poem I was working on was indeed a book. That’s when the focus really came in. Before that, it was just a poem I was working on. I had no idea what the length would be, or what it would turn into. As is the case with many poems. So, yeah, over the course of time I worked on lots of music. I actually just wrote a song called “Shotgun”, which is strange, because I don’t think it really has any connection to the book.

V: So, are you going to release another album?

S: Oh, yes. For sure.

V: Over the last few years, have you changed significantly as a person, so much so that it will be evident on the new record?

S: Well, of course I changed. Significantly? I think that it’s not necessarily the changes that show. But you grow to, as I was saying earlier, express more of yourself. Be yourself in greater depth. So, perhaps my sense of humor might become apparent. As it was not in the earlier stuff. You know? And, someone might wrongly characterize that as a change in me.

V: Yeah.

S: And in a sense it is, though, a change in me, because I’m growing more comfortable, perhaps, in the public eye-- revealing more of myself. But on the other hand, it’s really more of just sharing myself in greater depth. And that’s not always the most serious. Although there is much to be said about humor.

V: Yeah. See, that’s interesting that you bring that up, because that’s something that I’m struggling with myself. When did you become more comfortable revealing bits and pieces of yourself to the public? Was there ever a point in your life where you were absolutely terrified of sharing things with people?

S: No, there was never a point. I never planned on it initially, because my plan had always been to grow up to be an actor. And I never really planned on writing vehicles for myself when I was having those plans. So, it was always just a matter of being an actor. Not until the shift happened and I started writing poetry and all that, did I realize that with that came myself being an open book, and the importance of that for me, with the work that I aimed to do.

V: Yeah.

S: That is for me to remain as open as possible.

V: Yeah. Is there ever a point where you write a line, or an entire poem, and you think to yourself, “Oh, I don’t know if I should share this.”

S: Yeah. That’s usually when it involves someone else. Because I have to acknowledge that not everyone is on the same path as me. And that’s especially important with intimate relations and what have you.

V: Yeah, I know. I wondered about that, because there’s an overall tone of confidence in everything you’ve done. You just sound very confident.

S: Well, that’s interesting. I sound confident because I don’t think it’s mine. I feel like I’ve been used as a vessel by the greater aspects of the universe. I feel spoken through. And so my confidence is that. Having experienced writing something down and looking at it and saying, “Where the hell did that come from? I don’t know anything about that! That is so much greater than me.” Having had that experience, the confidence itself is really in the power of the universe, and in the fact that these sorts of mysteries do occur.

V: Yeah.

S: These phenomenons do occur. And so that’s my confidence. So it’s not a confidence in myself, more so it’s a confidence that these things are greater than myself. And thus they will always remain.

V: When I first heard your stuff and saw Slam, I thought, “Wow. He has no self-doubt!”

S: In that level, I guess there is none. Although, at the same time, She was full of self-doubt. But that’s what that book was about.

V: Yeah. But, see, I think you expressing that, though, is a sign that you’ve dealt with that. You're saying, "This is a part of my life that has happened."

S: Hmmm,.. well, I guess it all manifests itself in the part of my life that has nothing to do with books and movies, (laughs) and everything to do with personal relationships and all that. That’s where all the self-doubt is.

Both: (laugh)

V: Okay. I gotta let you go, because they said you have a bunch of interviews lined up. But first, what else do you have coming out that you’d like to tell everyone about?

S: Oh, what would I like to plug?

V: Yeah.

S: The book. It’s all about the book right now. When the music comes out, it comes out, and we’ll do a new interview. But it’s all about the book. I’m very excited about it, and I really hope people pick it up and take the time to read it. You know, we’ve gone through all the trouble of making it look interesting and everything. And, for some reason, someone might pick it up.

V: I think it’s one of the better things I’ve read in the last couple years.

S: Thank you.

V: And you’re going to tour?

S: As of this weekend, I’ll be gone, on the road.

V: With Mars Volta?

S: Part of the time with Mars Volta, part of the time alone. Lots of touring. I’m actually promoting the book like it’s an album. I’m doing rock venues and touring with rock bands. Next week I’m doing Harvard with Dead Prez!

V: Oh wow!

S: Yeah. It should be crazy.

V: Okay. I have one absolute final question for you. We ask everyone this question. It’s totally random, but we’ve been arguing about it for four years. Do dogs have lips?

S: Do dogs have lips?

V: Yeah.

S: (pauses) Yes, they do.

V: Excellent.

~~~

MOS DEF, PUSHING SOME UNPOPULAR OPINIONS ON THE BILL MAHER SHOW... WORD UP:



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ATMOSPHERE NUMBER 7



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B.A.M.

Some Pagan Shit!

Written by B.A.M. of PaganSociety

I must give Afrika Bambaataa the Master of Records high praise for being a true visionary, a Warlord , a King, a God and a Renegade of Funk. I listened to Planet Rock and watched the first Global movement of a new culture take place. It was a nuclear bomb that exploded on the airwaves with a Soulsonic Force. Partly influenced by a German group called Kraftwerk it was futuristic and not once were the words Hip-Hop even mentioned in the lyrics! The Zulu Nation took over the streets and the world with a sound that wasn’t Hip-Hop. It was Electro! Herculoids, Wizards, Masters, Grandmasters, Gods and Blastmasters hypnotized the minds of the masses with The Pagan System Booming. Creating a culture by mixing records that weren’t Hip-Hop.

“When a culture becomes redefined and exploited by someone who is not of the culture - it becomes something that it is not.” ~ 2nen Bladez.~

Are you Hip-Hop? Which came first the The Dj or Hip-Hop? Which came first Pagans or religion? Which came first gangsters or gangster rappers? Gangster rappers celebrate gangsters, the same way Religion celebrates Pagan holidays and Hip-Hop celebrates the Dj. Were the records that they played called Hip-Hop? No. Can the Rap records you listen to be called Hip-Hop? Sex, money, drugs, and vanity? That’s some Pagan shit!

Fresh out the box and outside the box. Inspired by Afrika Bambaataa of the Universal Zulu Nation I left the streets for a minute to do the knowledge as a brother from the jungle. I came across Rebels without a Pause, Renegades of Funk, Violators, gangsters, thugs, drug dealers, who possee’d up and rolled Mobb Deep under the Black Moon like an X Clan! OutKast! Public Enemies with a license to ill. Some straight up Pagan shit!

This thing we call Hip-hop was built on some Pagan shit. Whodini gave us Five Minutes of Funk. The “Freaks Came Out at Night” and they were all Pagan. Wiln’Out, beef’n, bumrushing, settin it off, drugs , sex , house parties , punk rockin’, orgies, dust, Kurtis “Blow” itchin’ for a scratch. All that shit is Pagan. Worshiping the many God’s of Hip-hop-which is polytheistic- is Pagan. Indulging in sensual pleasure like sex, drugs and strip clubs that’s Pagan. Everything is Pagan. “Fuck what you Herd!”…

Essay from “The Pagan Chronicles”

What is a Pagan Society?
It’s odd how people could refer to Pagans as “devil worshippers”. That’s a very old and antiquated mentality considering the times we live in now. A time when Sex and Violence is a part of our daily bread like Salt and Sugar. A person can listen to a record about getting high, lookin’ fly , doe or die and getting all the strippers in the club but when they hear the word Pagan, it’s devil worshipping. If the devil represents all things evil and not good for ones spiritual health, then I guess having all the above mentioned is something righteous because it’s in style. Instead of chasing the Rabbit in the Moon by that I mean instead of using words we were programmed to say in response to something that sounds dark why don’t we wake up and take a look around at the kind of Society we live in. A Pagan Society.

http://illseed.wordpress.com/2008/04/07/bam-speaks-again-baby-bam-of-jungle-brothers/

~~~

BUN B @ SXSW:



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TRUE DAT:

Deepak Chopra
"You and I are essentially infinite choice-makers. In every moment of our existence, we are in that field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices."

Dr. Wayne Dyer
"At any moment in time, all spirit is concentrated at the point where you focus your attention. Therefore, you can consolidate all creative energy at a given moment in time. This is your free will at work."

Harry Palmer
"You are much deeper, much broader, much brighter than any idea you could have of yourself."

~~~

IN CASE YOU AIN'T HEARD, YOUNG BUCK AIN'T IN THE G-UNIT GROUP NO MORE:

Well, I knew this was gonna happen….the other shoe has been ready to drop for months.

There were subtle signs, Young Buck stopped hyping G-Unit South, and launched Cashville Records instead. There were Buck’s comments about Tony Yayo’s assault charge on my girl Angie’s show. And of course, other comments about not beefing with Game.

Then there were the less subtle signs: Buck’s appearance onstage at a Baby and Lil Wayne concert. His interview on an Arizona radio station where Buck said, “I’ve been loyal….and its hard to be down with somebody when there’s no communication….It makes me feel like ‘what’s going on?’ There’s a video, everybody’s there, and there’s no Buck. Or you see your man moving overseas, on tour with the camp, with G-unit. Or you go to Thisis50.com and you see G-unit pictures is there, without Buck’s face…and then there’s no communication so I don’t really understand why…”

Oh boy. But the straw that broke the camel’s back was apparently, was this unsolicited offering from Young Buck to Quinton Hatfield of YoRaps…

“A lot of times a lot of artists don’t recoup off of albums so a lot of times they never get to see the backend from that project. I’m the only artist on G-Unit that ever recouped off of an album meaning I went off on this “Buck The World” project not owing Interscope and G-Unit shit, I can say that much. I’m still waiting on a royalty check period, I never seen a royalty check since I’ve been signed with G-Unit. So hell yeah I’ll tell you one damn thing the show money is that good. I’ve never in my career cashed a royalty check, how you like that? Put that one in big black letters n*gga!”

Now after this interview went up, Buck’s team went into damage control mode, doing a really good job of calming the situation and also releasing a statement that Buck “cleared $10million” as a G-unit artist and that the writer was “taking Buck’s words wrong.” Meanwhile YoRaps released their own statement, basically saying, don’t use us as a scapegoat, come check the tape.

But it didn’t really matter because, 50 was already reaching for the eject-button.

Why would Buck’s comments about royalties be that big of a deal? According to inside sources…..A few years back, Young Buck was in big trouble with the IRS. We’re talking $500,000 worth of trouble. And like Al Capone and Ron Isley would tell you, “in this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.” So, 50 Cent bailed him out and paid the debt.

Allegedly Buck celebrated getting off the hook, by buying a Bentley (doh!). But either way, 50 recouped $300k of his loan over time by taking…you guessed it…Young Buck’s royalty checks. Not his show money, or his label advance, or even his watch deal money.

So with $200,000 still in the red, from what I hear, that’s why Young Buck’s seemingly innocuous comment on a hip hop website spiraled into a G-unit drop kick.

Now, is Young Buck a valuable member of the group? Definitely. His Tennessee twang brings much needed diversity to their Queens County bullet-bullet-shank schtick. And Buck is still featured on the upcoming G-unit album. But he’s looking at an uphill battle as a contracted solo artist in a hostile environment if things are not amicably resolved.

Can they be amicably resolved?……I hope so.

But let’s just say….I get the feeling (read: hearing whispers) that there are some very itchy trigger fingers on both sides of this stand-off.

(PS: The timing of Game’s comments baiting Buck on that new Black Wall Street song are just peachy, huh? Maybe Game learned something during his time with 50 after all.)

www.missinfo.tv

~~~

LIL WAYNE, SWAGGER JACKER LIKE JIGGA?



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MOS DEF PERFORMING:



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'BIRTHDAY GIRL' = NOT WORTHY

The intended first single from the Roots' new album, which features Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump, has fallen off of "Rising Down," due April 29 via Def Jam.

Drummer and co-producer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson tells Billboard.com that the track, "Birthday Girl," has been bumped simply because it does not fit the tone of what he calls "the most incendiary, political album of our career to date."

"It was just sticking out like a sore thumb," Thompson says of "Birthday Girl," which was built from an idea that's been around since sessions for the Roots' 2004 album "The Tipping Point." "Initially it was going to kick-start the record ... but then that didn't work. Then we were going to have a 'halftime' thing where it was gonna come in the middle of the record as a break from the political thing, but that didn't work, either.

"Then we tried to make it the last song on the record, and that wasn't working," he continues. "Then we tried to make it the hidden track, and that wasn't effective. Basically the album was complete; it starts with 'Rising Down' and it ends with 'Rising Up,' so that makes more sense to me."

Thompson says that even though it won't be on the album, "Birthday Girl" will still be available as an iTunes exclusive later this month. The Roots and Stump -- who became friendly with the band at its 2004 pre-Grammy Awards jam session -- have filmed a video for "Birthday Girl," which will be available on viral outlets.

"Rising Down" also features guest appearances by Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Saigon and others. The political tone, Thompson says, was inspired by circumstances in the Roots' native Philadelphia, where high school dropout rates are 45 percent and crime has sharply increased.

"Add up all that, plus being in your mid-30s and working 300 nights a year and this being an election year -- yeah, all that's what this album's about," Thompson says.

The Roots kick off a U.S. tour tomorrow (April 9), which includes appearances at the Green Apple Festival in Washington, D.C., the Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. An eight-show run with Erykah Badu begins May 4 in Detroit.

~~~

GUILTY SIMPSON AND BLACK MILK SHOW YOU AROUND D-TROIT:




~~~

peace to everyone at Andy Pool Hall last night... that place is DOPE!
big up Fase!!!
all my friends there, you rock. Nylda and Ian, i love you. Junia, you're the man. Empire rules all, ya dun know. Heist, Q, Benzo, King Jedi... Everyone else, you are the fucking best. Marleigh and Ashley, you are HOT SAUCE :)
okay, time to get over my fucking addiction AGAIN
I'll never learn, will I?
today: Buckshot. word up!
talkin Simpsons and hipsters... LOL
gonna be fun
love, Mindbender

p.s.

SO FUCKING HILARIOUS IT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY... I HAD TO PUT THIS UP AGAIN. BUCKSHOT IS THE FUCKING MAN: