Saul Williams

Saul Williams is an American poet, rapper, singer, songwriter, and actor whose three-decade career has produced multiple American spoken-word, hip-hop, and rock-music projects, plus substantial film and theater work. He was born Saul Stacey Williams on February 29, 1972, in Newburgh, New York. He attended Morehouse College in Atlanta (B.A. in philosophy and acting, 1994) and earned an M.F.A. in acting from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in 1997.

His career-launching break came with the 1998 Marc Levin film Slam — the spoken-word feature in which Williams played the Black poet Ray Joshua opposite Sonja Sohn. The film won the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize and the Cannes Film Festival Camera d'Or in 1998 — making Williams one of the most-iconic American spoken-word figures of the late 1990s.

His 1999 spoken-word debut album Amethyst Rock Star — produced by American producer Rick Rubin — established his hip-hop-meets-poetry-meets-rock musical style. Subsequent albums included the self-titled Saul Williams (2004), the Trent Reznor-produced The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! (2007), Volcanic Sunlight (2011), and the 2016 album MartyrLoserKing.

His parallel film career has produced multiple substantial roles, including the 2007 musical Across the Universe (Julie Taymor's Beatles-music-driven jukebox musical). His Broadway-debut performance was the 2013 musical Holler If Ya Hear Me — an Broadway musical built around Tupac Shakur's music. He has continued to publish poetry collections, including S/HE (1999), , said the shotgun to the head. (2003), and The Dead Emcee Scrolls (2006). He is currently an active spoken-word and hip-hop performer, continuously visible at American academic and artistic events.

His name Saul is from the Hebrew Sha'ul meaning "asked for" or "longed for" — referring to the Old Testament first king of Israel. Saul has been continuously among the most-popular American boys' names for decades.