Saul Williams - Saul Williams (2004)

I wouldn’t say Williams is any more conventional now than he was on this breakout second album; it’s hard to tell, since his output has been limited to features on other peoples’ tracks (and a movie soundtrack) for nearly a decade. But it’s also hard to overstate how much of a wild shotgun blast of creativity you get on these early Williams records.

The music is hip hop in a spiritual sense, using the rhythms of the spoken word to examine the difficulty of life. But in technical terms, it’s constructed from a wild array of metal, rock, industrial, and dancefloor styles that Williams either speaks or raps or sings over.

Tracks I Liked

Grippo - a metal-driven marching beat

List of Demands - non-stop banger

Black Stacey - a scathingly personal narrative