Saul Williams (born February 29, 1972, Newburgh, New York, U.S.) is an American rapper, poet, and actor who has been a prominent figure in the scenes of alternative hip-hop and slam poetry. He has performed at the White House and the Sydney Opera House as well as at small community centres and prisons all over the world.
Born to a Baptist minister and a teacher, Williams inherited a taste for music and reading. Coming across the work of William Shakespeare connected reading poetry and performance for Williams. In third grade he was cast in his first play, as Mark Antony in Julius Caesar. He continued to pursue acting at Morehouse College in Atlanta, where he also studied philosophy for his undergraduate degree, which he earned in 1994. Three years later he received a master’s degree in acting from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.
Williams’s family is Black Creole, his great grandmother immigrating to the U.S. from Haiti in the early 20th century. The other side of his family migrated from South Carolina to Brooklyn, where Williams’s parents subsequently met. They became involved in the civil rights movement. Thus, Williams’s family tree is a collage of violent histories of racism, colonialism, and slavery. As such, he has been surrounded by activism since birth, and he has carried on that legacy in his work and life.
Hip-hop has always been a huge part of his experiences as a performer. In college Williams joined a group called K.I.N. as a dancer. It opened for various performers, including X Clan and Cypress Hill. He started to transcribe hip-hop lyrics in graduate school, not long before he began writing his own poetry. In 1995 he first took part in local poetry readings. A year later, he won the slam poetry contest at New York City’s Nuyorican Poets Cafe. He subsequently led that establishment’s team to the National Poetry Slam finals in Portland, Oregon. His published poetry collections include She (1999), The Dead Emcee Scrolls: The Lost Teachings of Hip-Hop (2006), and US (a.) (2015).
During the 1996 National Poetry Slam finals, filmmakers documented the lives and poetry of Williams and the rest of the team, which included Beau Sia, muMs da Schemer, and Jessica Care Moore. The result was the documentary SlamNation, which was released in 1998. That same year Williams won praise for his portrayal of a poet trapped by social, racial, and economic circumstances in the film Slam. Williams cowrote the drama and collaborated on the soundtrack. Williams also appeared in the film K-PAX (2001) and had a recurring role in the television series Girlfriends (2003). In 2014 he played the lead role in the Broadway musical Holler If Ya Hear Me, which showcased the rap music of Tupac Shakur. Williams made his directorial debut with Neptune Frost (2021); he wrote and codirected the film with his wife, Anisia Uzeyman, and he also created its music.
During his travels to Jamaica and Senegal, Williams absorbed Bob Marley and other reggae influences. To Greg Cochrane, host of the podcast Midnight Chats, Williams explained how his musical interests and pursuits have always been an eclectic and international mix. When he was 16, Williams traveled to Goioerê, Brazil, as an exchange student. Having run out of hip-hop records he brought from home, he turned to local music. He grew fond of samba and bossa nova traditions, both part of the global cultural legacy of enslaved Africans. Also during that time he fell in love with the music of David Bowie, who, Williams says, has remained an inspiration even after Bowie’s death. The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust, Williams’s 2007 album, was directly influenced by Bowie’s fifth album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, released in 1972. Williams began his solo recording career almost a decade prior, with the album Amethyst Rock Star (2001). It features 11 songs blending spoken word and hip-hop music. His other albums include Volcanic Sunlight (2011) and MartyrLoserKing (2016).