Saul Williams Niggy Stardust Rarity

Opinion Saul Williams @ Ruby Lounge DESPITE previous successes both on poetry stages and on the silver screen (taking the lead in the Marc Levin directed ‘Slam’), it’s the American rock communities embracing of Williams’ raw socially conscious prose and hard-hitting beats that seem to have pulled most in tonight. Following the pay-what-you-feel Trent Reznor produced ‘The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust’ album, this rare visit north for the rapper finds most wondering if he’d be able to transfer the energising bounce, inherent in his best material, to the stage.

In their wake, followed Saul Williams, the actor, spoken word artist, and musician, who made his third full-length, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust, available online with two purchase choices: fans could either download the album for free or pay $5 for a higher bitrate version. As you might.

Written by Corey W. DeVos Free Audio Interview!

Saul Williams and Ken Wilber 'Niggy Tardust is about what it means to look at history and the present as a whole, as opposed to running away in disgust or bowing one's head in guilt—saying 'yes' to all that has been, in full acknowledgement; saying 'yes, all of those things convene in me.' ' -Saul Williams Part 1: The Rise and Liberation For anyone who has yet to listen, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust is an absolutely amazing collaboration between Saul and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. Saul has always been known for his post-conventional approach to Hip Hop, and nowhere does this come through more than on this album. It is truly a trans-genre masterpiece, perfectly blending Saul's powerful vocals with the industrial 'wall of sound' orchestration that has come to define Nine Inch Nails.

But even more impressive than Saul's impulse to transcend genre is his ability to use art to transform and transcend identity itself, breaking through the self-imposed limitations of the finite self, and opening to the clear, limitless consciousness at the heart of this and every moment. This move toward more freedom and more fullness is, of course, a gradual process, and one that requires a tremendous amount of practice. For Saul, performance is that practice—whether it's acting, poetry, or music, performance is a place where the phoenix can cycle through its own creation and destruction, losing itself and finding itself again and again through greater and greater degrees of identity and awareness. Art has always been Saul's primary path of transcendence, and has led him through some of the most extraordinary experiences available to human consciousness—from 'me' to man, from man to black man, from black man to human being, and from human being to just one of an infinite number of masks God wears to make existence a little more interesting. Download Tema Hp Sony Ericsson W200 more.

In this talk, Saul describes his creative process while recording Niggy Tardust, and how he has been able to turn his life on and off the stage into a sort of 'walking meditation,' so that he can harness all of the energy from performance, and focus it all into his creativity while working on the new album. He also discusses the connection between his poetry and his dancing, using his body to dictate the rhythms and cadence of his voice, whether he is rapping, singing, or reciting.

By consciously bringing Spirit, mind, and body into mutual synchrony, we can open ourselves to a vast field of creative potential—and by creating from this transcendent space, the very same consciousness can be directly transmitted through artistic performance, as artist, artwork, and audience melt together into an absolutely singular experience, effortlessly unhindered by the this and that of dualistic thinking. 'Great art,' says Ken, 'is both great content and great delivery.' This certainly applies to Saul's performance, and to his ability to cultivate not only amazing things to say, but also amazing ways to say them—but this phrase also perfectly describes the methods by which Saul is releasing the album to the world. In a nearly unprecedented move, Saul and Trent are making Niggy Tardust available to download for free, with an optional $5 donation to download a higher-quality version of the album.

You can download your version right now by visiting A well-timed reaction to the dismal state of the music industry, this experimental means of distribution may in fact be heralding a whole new age of content delivery—whereas the 'Dick Clark' model of the industry may have once been entirely necessary, it is obviously ill-suited for the 21st century, and is beginning to crumble under its own monolithic weight. As Ken has mentioned before, when a system becomes unable to meet the needs of the changing world around it, it experiences a 'legitimacy crisis' and initiates its own form of an Inquisition. Thus, the modern-day Inquisitors (e.g. The R.I.A.A.) attempt to tighten their grasp, filing lawsuits against people sharing music online, often including children, and even the deceased. There is no telling what form the music industry will take in the future, once it has adapted to the problems and possibilities of the information age; nor can we prophesy how up-and-coming artists will be able to market themselves without the current industry, but it is probably safe to say that the future will more closely resemble Saul and Trent's ideas more than it will the form it has taken for the past several decades. Part 2: Deconstructing Niggy In this incredible walkthrough of The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust, Saul discusses the overall concept of the album, as well as an in-depth look at many of the songs.

The album is about transcendence, pure and simple, as the title clearly states—whereas David Bowie used the Ziggy Stardust character to challenge people's notions of sex, gender, and image, Niggy Tardust uses Hip Hop to challenge our attitudes of race, racism, and identity. It forces us to confront our accumulated fears, discomfort, and victimhood around some extremely sensitive issues, without the Novocain of political correctness or identity politics to numb our exposed nerve endings.

He explains his effort to redefine the 'N-word' itself—liberating a word synonymous with human oppression by allowing us to fully feel its power, its violence, and its pain. It is an attempt to infuse the profane with the sacred, a Tantric impulse to recognize all of existence as truly not-two, where Spirit can fully embrace even the darkest regions of our soul. There is much talk in America recently around the issues of race. As Barack Obama assumes his historic presidency, we have begun to collectively reflect upon our relationship with race and racism, and the conversation seems to have polarized into two radically different positions. On one hand, Obama's inauguration prompts liberals to proudly declare that, finally, we live in a 'post-racial' America, no longer tethered to the racial divisiveness that has infected our political systems since the country's inception.

On the other hand, a great number of people are still asking the question 'are we ready for a black president?,' which itself seems to indicate that a genuine 'post-racial' America is still on the horizon of human evolution. The truth, of course, lies somewhere between, or beyond, these two extremes—we have certainly made some tremendous strides in our collective attitudes toward race and racism, but we cannot confuse our accomplishments with outright victory. There can be no singular victory over racism, but like peace itself, it is a victory that must be won again and again, perpetually into the future. In furthering the dialogue on race and racism, Hip Hop culture offers a fascinating means of exploring the subject, as racial identity has always been at the front and center of the art form.

Just as in any genre of art, Hip Hop is capable of reflecting the entirety of the human condition—all of our beauty, all of our misery, all of our scars and scabs, all of our boundless creativity and limitless potential. Consider the wide range of conscious depth as expressed through Hip Hop—developmental studies have consistently shown that human beings develop through several distinct stages of consciousness and identity: from ego-centric consciousness ('me'), to ethno-centric consciousness ('others like me,' in terms of race, religion, nationality, etc.), to world-centric consciousness ('all of us'), to Kosmo-centric consciousness ('all of existence'). Each of these broad stages of human development open us to radically different ways of perceiving ourselves and the world around us, with our entire sense of identity being the interface between the two.

And we can find all of it within Hip Hop—from the power-driven thug mentality of ego-centrism, to the rivalries, racism, and misogyny of ethno-centrism, to the more conscious expressions of world-centrism often found in underground Hip Hop, to the rare but remarkable few who, like Saul, are using the art as a genuine means of embodied mysticism and Self realization. Hip Hop culture includes all of these very different attitudes and altitudes of consciousness, which has made it one of the most controversial art forms in the modern world, and especially frustrating to those who want to either idealize it, demonize it, or dismiss it altogether. With roots extending deep into the core of African-American oppression, Hip Hop offers us a fascinating glimpse into the problems of race and racism in the world, as well as a means of overcoming our limited perceptions of reality by simply opening ourselves to all of the different voices the genre has to offer, and integrating these perspectives into a cohesive understanding of ourselves and each other. From this integration we can begin to see the subtleties that exist between, for example, the well-known Hip Hop groups N.W.A. And Public Enemy, the former offering a 1st-person account of life in the ghetto from an ego/ethnocentric point of view, and the latter offering a more 3rd-person view of the ghetto from a largely world-centric perspective. Both accounts are necessary for a full picture to emerge, which Hip Hop culture is more than happy to serve up.

While studying the Integral model, it can be easy to mistake 'race' as a notion which, once we move past the ethno-centric stage of development, is something we no longer need to concern ourselves with. (Speaking in the context of the U.S., this is probably more true for whites than minorities, simply because minorities often report being subtly reminded of the color of their skin on a daily basis, simply from living in a white-majority mainstream culture. Black Knights Tango Pdf Creator here. ) But it is important to remember that even if we have moved beyond our exclusive identity with our own racial heritage, that aspect of our identity does not simply vanish, but instead becomes even more textured and nuanced than ever before. We also have the ability to more deeply explore other racial identities, cultures, and heritages, further enriching our own, and slowly peeling back many of the residual filters we unconsciously place over our perceptions of reality. The goal is not to be color-blind, as our politically-correct society often tells us to be, but to allow ourselves to see the entire spectrum of color, much more vividly than ever before. From this integral vantage point, we can see that our similarities are where we find Truth, our differences are where we find Beauty, and navigating between the two is where we find our Goodness.

There aren't many artists in the world today who more fully exemplify this integrative consciousness in Hip Hop than Saul Williams. His capacity to so fully engage the 'language of the mystics' of the spiritual realm, to pull it down through the sounds and visions of the mental realm, and to push the transcendent clarity of consciousness through your entire body, is absolutely unparalleled. And while he is pushing spirit all the way down through our souls, through our minds, and into our feet, he is simultaneously pulling some of our darkest shadows up through consciousness, using art to disarm much of the fear and resentment that has prevented our collective dialogue around race and racism from moving forward for decades. This is a truly one-of-a-kind discussion, which you will find nowhere else in the world. We recommend that you visit, download this exceptional album for a mere five dollars (or for free, if you can't donate at this time), and listen to this fascinating conversation.

Editor's Note - A Brief Exploration of Race and Hip Hop Hip hop is a natural evolution of 20th century music, which is itself considered by many to have been derived almost entirely from the legacy of black music and culture. In the early 1950's, much of America was becoming fascinated by the new sounds they began to hear on local radio stations around the country, which were playing an exciting mix of black music, including gospel, blues, and boogie-woogie. In 1954, Sam Phillips, the head of Sun Records, was searching for someone who could translate these new sounds into something he could sell to white people. Despite the remarkable influence black music was having upon American culture, the Civil Rights movement had yet to hit its stride, and there was still as of yet no place for black artists within the newly-emerging mainstream of popular culture. To be blunt, black people were simply not marketable. So Sam found the perfect man to help bring black music into the larger culture—and that man was Elvis Presley. Remaining one of the most controversial figures in modern music, Elvis has been accused on the one hand of 'stealing' black music and diluting it to the point where it was finally acceptable to the sensibilities of white America.

Elvis himself is quoted as saying 'The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I'm doin' now, man, for more years than I know. They played it like that in their shanties and in their juke joints and nobody paid it no mind 'til I goosed it up. I got it from them.' On the other hand, Elvis is credited as being a genuine step forward for black and white culture alike; as Little Richard said: 'He was an integrator. Elvis was a blessing. They wouldn't let black music through. He opened the door for black music.'

Whether or not we perceive Elvis as a thief or as an innovator, one thing remains certain—almost the entire legacy of Rock and Roll can be attributed to his magnificent wake. Rock music itself became the soundtrack to the Civil Rights movements in the late fifties and sixties, and its unique confluence of black and white art may have actually contributed to the culture of racial equality that was beginning to emerge at this time.

Fast forwarding through five decades of music culture, it isn't hard to see the natural progression of black music through many different forms of music, wildly mutating and undulating into almost as many different sorts of sounds as the human ear is capable of hearing. Blues and boogie-woogie became Rockabilly in the 1950's, which became Rock and Roll in the late 50's and 60's, branching out into soul, funk, R&B, and disco in the 70's.