Show Notes
What happens when an artist refuses to separate creativity from revolution? Poet, musician, actor, filmmaker, and cultural provocateur Saul Williams joins Donwill for an expansive conversation about Leap Life, his first solo studio album in seven years, and Songs My Mother Taught Me, a new nonfiction book examining the experiences and ideas that shaped his political consciousness. Working alongside producer Carlos Niño, Williams transforms experimental soundscapes, dance rhythms, and ancestral memory into music that confronts artificial intelligence, colonialism, and the machinery of modern power. From recording a track inside Cairo's bustling streets on his leap-day birthday to hosting listening séances honoring the lives lost to violence, Williams reveals why his latest work is both deeply personal and unapologetically political.
Saul travels with Donwill back to the Brooklyn poetry scene of the 1990s, where Williams shared open-mic stages with future cultural luminaries, including Yasiin Bey and Erykah Badu, before becoming a defining voice of the spoken-word movement. Saul breaks down:
The making of Leap Life: How Carlos Niño helped transform years of experimental demos into a cohesive album.
The ideas behind Songs My Mother Taught Me, the influence of Paul Robeson and W.E.B. Du Bois, and why Williams believes music should challenge power rather than reinforce it.
His first performance at Brooklyn Moon Cafe in 1995, friendships with Yasiin Bey and Erykah Badu, and the creative community that helped bring spoken-word poetry to a new generation.
His journey through film, theater, and experimental storytelling, including Holler If Ya Hear Me, his years in Paris, and the patience required to create work that defies categorization.
The relationship between AI and forced labor explored in "Robot Slave," his listening séances, and why fiction, poetry, and music remain essential tools for imagining liberation.
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Created and hosted by award-winning artist and cultural commentator Donwill, The Almanac of Rap is Areya Media’s living archive of hip-hop history, told by the people who made it. Through deeply researched interviews, cultural deep dives and conversations with artists, producers, DJs and architects of the culture, the series connects hip-hop’s past to the ideas shaping its future.
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