SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
We'll take a look now - no, a listen - to one of the nominees at tomorrow's Grammy Awards.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SAUL WILLIAMS: If it is up to me, it is up to me. And thus is my love, untainted, eternal.
SIMON: That's poet Saul Williams on his album "Saul Williams Meets Carlos Niño & Friends At Treepeople," which is up for an award for best spoken word poetry album. It's a live album, but unlike many others, which may be compilations of many different performances in many different places, "Saul Williams Meets Carlos Niño & Friends At Treepeople" happened just once, December 2024, on the stage of an outdoor amphitheater in Los Angeles - just Williams and percussionist Niño backed by seven more artists.
WILLIAMS: None of us had prepared. There was no rehearsal. We literally said hello to each other, walked on stage and performed. It's a hundred percent improvise in terms of the musicianship. We were all just there listening to each other and feeling it out.
SIMON: Williams was a leader of the slam poetry movement of the 1990s. He then moved on to acting and making music as a hip-hop artist.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIST OF DEMANDS (REPARATIONS)")
WILLIAMS: (Rapping) I got to list of demands written on the palm of my hands. I ball my fist so you're gonna know where I stand. We livin' (ph) hand to mouth. You wanna be somebody? See somebody? Try and free somebody?
SIMON: With his Grammy-nominated album, Williams steers himself back into the world of poetry and says there's similarities between the worlds of hip-hop and poetry, but also major differences.
WILLIAMS: In hip-hop, you have a lot of rappers claiming to be, like, the best rapper in the world. It's highly competitive. And as a result, you know, rappers take on a warrior sort of stance and, you know, that warrior sense of no vulnerability. The poet sense is recognizing the power in vulnerability.
SIMON: Saul Williams grew up in New York's Hudson Valley, the son of a Haitian pastor. Pete Seeger was a neighbor, and he often performed at the elder Williams' church.
WILLIAMS: So I grew up with artists as activists, artists who realized the power of the art itself to, you know, do more than galvanize people to dance or let off steam, but it was also a way of directing steam.
SIMON: Williams directs steam on "Saul Williams Meets Carlos Niño & Friends At Treepeople." He says he hopes the album inspires people to dismantle unjust systems by using their roles as individuals in society.
WILLIAMS: So if you're a nurse, you can speak up as a nurse against what you see happening to other nurses, whether that's in a place like Palestine or now here in the United States. If you are a teacher, if you are - any position that you have in society can be, in a sense, weaponized against fascism.
SIMON: The category spoken word poetry album is new. His first Grammy was awarded in 2023, but Williams points out that spoken word has long been a part of popular music.
WILLIAMS: If you listen to Jim Morrison in The Doors, you know, if you listen to - you know, there's old albums by the last poets that went double platinum in the '70s, you know? There's tons of ways in which poetry and spoken poetry has played a role in music over the years.
SIMON: And as for his Grammy nomination, Williams says he sees it as an opportunity to speak out against injustice.
WILLIAMS: How can I not bastardize this? How can I make the most sense of this? How can I go beyond the egoic satisfaction of, like, oh, my gosh, there's 10,000 people in the audience or what have you and utilize this for the best for everyone in the room, for the best of humanity, for the best of our own growth, for the best of whatever we're facing.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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