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Why shouldn't rap be esoteric, able to take in current events, history and criticism? I guess it's this old idea of containment - that rappers, because they're black, can't and shouldn't aspire to look outside the ghetto for influence.

Saul Williams

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Saul Williams
Age: 52
Born: 1972
Born: February 29
Actor
Composer
Film Actor
Musician
Poet
Rapper
Screenwriter
Singer
Television Actor
Voice Actor
Writer
Newburgh
New York
Saul Stacey Williams
Ideas
Guess
Ghetto
Look
Outside
Aspire
Looks
Events
Rapper
Take
Influence
Rap
Idea
Current
History
Currents
Containment
Black
Shouldn
Rappers
Able
Criticism
Esoteric

More quotes by Saul Williams

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I've never believed it's really so important that you conform to the ways of the system in order to beat the system. I think that the system follows a great deal.
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The music aids the message, it's there to punctuate and abbreviate and shape the silence
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I feel pretty vulnerable all the time.
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There's so much to be found in literature, especially if you don't have the money to travel or the means to get out of your neighborhood or get off work.
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I don't really believe in writer's block or anything like that. If I'm not feeling words, I may pick up an instrument and play with sounds or delve into different types of creativity and expression.
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It was always important to me to be that kid who could rock the party as well as rock the English professor's mind.
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Art can play a major role. I look at art as an alternative source of energy, the same way we might look at wind or solar or lithium batteries.
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I spend my time sitting in train stations, parks, parking lots, cafes, just looking at people - eavesdropping, basically. I'm vulnerable to all of it.
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the anchor man thrown overboard has simply rooted us in history's repeating cycle
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I'm very excited about the resurgence of vinyl which seems to parallel a growing interest in live performance.
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When I finally decide that I'm ready to get out of bed, it could be the sunlight, it could be the fact that I'm awake, and, OK, first of all, I wake up in the morning because I have to go to the bathroom.
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The only reason I've been so critical of hip-hop is because I've always been aware of the effect that it has, and the reflection that it gives of the African-American community.
Saul Williams
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Hip-hop is too young to put a definition on it
Saul Williams
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My father's a preacher, my mother's a teacher, thus... I rhyme.
Saul Williams
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Honestly, I don't always want to get up in the mornings, but I do anyway.
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Hip-hop is still cool at a party. But to me, hip-hop has never been strictly a party it is also there to elevate consciousness.
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If we're gonna progress as a people we are going to realise that, as one of my favourite poets says, the other is a lie. There are no other people. Race is a social construct.
Saul Williams
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When I look at certain aspects of popular culture - not everything because I like a lot of things - sometimes my heart breaks a little bit, just a little bit. I begin to ponder what happened to this generation, I don't know.
Saul Williams
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I have a very family-like connection to hip-hop, which is why it frustrates me so much.
Saul Williams
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I dance for no reason, for reasons you can't dance, Call me an activist of intellectualized circumstance You can't learn my steps until you unlearn your thoughts Spirit, soul, can't be store-bought.
Saul Williams