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 More Quotes by Saul Williams More Quotes From Saul Williams It's not the rules everywhere, you know? That's not the rules everywhere - that things have to be dumbed down in order to become massively popular. And that hasn't always been the rule, even in America. Saul Williams knows order america The role that theater has placed in enhancing consciousness and moving systems ahead. I think of what South African theater meant for the apartheid movement, for example. I think of what music has meant for so many social movements across time. Saul Williams example moving thinking 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. Saul Williams cafes sitting people 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. Saul Williams literature found mean When I wake up in the morning, the first things that I see are the clouds. They're right there. I look out my window now and there's always, always a black bird of some sort on the ledge there. Usually I wake up and look at the birds. Saul Williams clouds morning bird We cannot continually barricade ourselves under some falsified idea of race, because our idea of blackness and race is simply reactionary. Africans didnt walk around Africa being black and proud, they walked around proud. Saul Williams black race ideas i laced my shoes with sorrow and walked a weary road dead end streets don't come undone with double knots wing tipped shoes that walk on air through vacant lots Saul Williams shoes air wings Fax me a fact and I'll telegram a hologram or telephone the son of man and tell him he is done. Leave a message on his answering machine telling him there are none. God and I are one. Times moon. Times star. Times sun. The factor is me. You remember me. Saul Williams stars moon son Books are carefully folded forests/void of autumn/bound from the sun Saul Williams void autumn book I can't say that I always want to get out of bed, you know. Saul Williams bed knows want We all have different relationships with music. But the music is always there. Saul Williams different-relationships music-is different It's crazy when you see very little reflection between what's played on the radio and what people are talking about in the streets. It lets you know how far off we are from a real movement. Saul Williams crazy real reflection I have a very family-like connection to hip-hop, which is why it frustrates me so much. Saul Williams connections hips hip-hop I was fed by the music I listened to as a kid. Hip-hop fed me psychologically, spiritually, politically. I learned from that music. Saul Williams hips hip-hop kids I have an acquired taste for language, yet it is seldom an actual focus of mine. Saul Williams focus language taste My father's a preacher, my mother's a teacher, thus... I rhyme. Saul Williams mother teacher father The wind is the moon's imagination wandering. Saul Williams moon imagination wind I'm usually trying to get back into the dream or analyzing the dream. And yeah, the days, most days begin like that. Saul Williams analyzing dream trying Punk rock meditation, that's what keeps it going. That's how I let go, you know. It's exactly what I do, I blast it and run around crazy banging my head on the wall. Saul Williams wall letting-go running I think that heartbreak is a good thing. Saul Williams good-things thinking