Saul Good.
Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney, 13-01-06

The Marquee was long and low and was being thoroughly washed and rinsed by Sydneys third night of rain on the trot. Mild precipitation this wasn't, the social smokers had already decided against it, leaving the hardened and resigned to hug the Barracks walls blowing blue steam through the drops. The warm sweaty interior had a dank humidity, slightly too wet to be cozy. This was the kind of gig where dreads smell real bad.

When Williams' opening poem struck out through the cheers and chatter it took half the room with it instantly. People stood mouths half open, straining to catch every word. Syllables rolled over syllables, the metre rose and dipped and twisted in on itself impossibly. Long lung defying deliveries occasionally giving way to the repeated affirmation 'I am'. Half told stories hung unfinished in the crowd as the gathered congregation of low slung jeans and phat laces refocused attention on the man on the mic.

Listening to spoken word delivered at this speed can be all consuming in the same way a subtitled film holds you tighter. Scared to look away for fear of missing something, the audience is carried willingly towards the poems conclusion, and when it reaches its climax, and the beat cracks like the whip in the poem, 'Sha-clack-clack', and the hairs on wet necks stood erect, and the oppressive atmosphere turns electric, Saul Williams had set his stall out.

Its true that free form lyrics combined with the tight boom-tish of a hip hop rhythm has never been an easy marriage. Sometimes the poems can be enhanced, but often Williams suffered similar problems as Ursular Rukka at the Opera House late last year; either the beat is shoe horned round the words or the words round the beat, the flow can seem constricted. Despite this, for the best part of two hours, tightly knitted phrases of injustice were juxtaposed with a self proclaimed power to overcome. All without a single syllable smudged, not a single misphrasing, not one stich dropped. He said 'I am' and he certainly was.

http://www.saulwilliams.com/