“Oh shit, it sounds like bass-drops bombshells being exploded on digital enemy areas,” that was my first reaction after hitting the play button on Saul William’s The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust.
Upon listening to the first fourteen seconds of Blackhistory month, the first track of Saul Williams’ newest release, ‘The envitable Rise and Liberation of Niggytardust,’ you can feel its intensity and importance influencing your very heart-rate. I had to take a break for a few, and then gear myself back up for an experience that I knew I wasn’t prepared for. If you’ve ever heard Saul Williams speak, rhyme, or even read any of his poetry, history would tell you that shock, jaw-dropping awe, and inevitable culture shock will ensue. But, I still wasn’t prepared to hear this….masterpiece of expression.
This album is more than just a creative musical exploration of superb lyrical expression and innovative, in-your-face distorted beats, it is the anthem for progressive thought, consciousness of social consciousness that music has been lacking since Mos Def released his 2004 record True Danger.
Rough edged guitar riffs, staccato snare hits, and enough synthesizer to have you feeling like you’re in a acid trip, or hearing a group of black, green, and red bandanna wearing a angels, Niggytardust has more range the any government controlled F-14. This might be the most important album for the black community, and mainstream community (if these lyrics ever make it to the surface) since Public Enemy’s ‘Fear of a Black Planet.’
This is the central concept of the album, embodied in the title track “Niggytardust” is this: the clock of comfort and oppression that the glorification of an African American mentality of consumerism and ignorance that reduces everyone, especially mainstream rap’s listener base to nothing more than puppets of consumerism.
Although just making political statements against afrocentristic a mind frame isn’t the whole of Williams’ lyrical content. He also: calls out Curtis (50 cent, what!), voices his less-than-favorable view of the U.S. war of terror, I meant war on terror, and speaks out on a load of ‘I can’t believe he said that’ issues that never grace our daily views.
Club rump-shaker this is not. With the production of Trent Reznor (mastermind behind the innovative and most times gothic Nine Inch Nails), each track has music that is emotionally associated to each word of its corresponding song. Niggytardust calls out the present, follow-the-leader mentality that grips our urban society. Semi-morose and almost difficult to listen to, the sheer honesty of the hook puts the listener at attention when it says, “When I say nigga, you say nothing, you say nothing…when I say nigga, you say nothing, nigga, nothing….shut up.”
Not to down Jay-Z, Nas, or any of our present day icons and legends in the Hip-Hop industry, but ‘The envitable Rise and Liberation of Niggytardust’ is the album they were too scared to make, or maybe too closed-minded to venture out for. Either way, Saul Williams’ latest offering gives new meaning of purpose. We all should thank him for a very, very, very long time.
Download: “DNA” “Black History Month”
