In wake of the Aesop nostalgia
 

...I was reminded of the great wordsmith Saul Williams.

Admittedly I haven't peeped any of his stuff in over a decade. But, there was a moment in time when he was badass with the spoken word. It's likely a few of you might have appreciated his earlier material just as much as I once did. Idk. He was sharp with the pen tho. Thoughts?

Was he on that short lived def jam poetry slam or something like that?

I remember mos def on it

Yoooo

coded language is outstanding. and one of those bits he done in slam come to mind. he's nice - can only really hear him acapella personally but yea.

passed up the chance to see him live a few years ago which i kind of regret.

talented dude.

What up @Killing Spree

He had a few albums. Played some roles on television and the movies, and most likely the theater as well. He also may or may not have released a book or two on top of that. But, yeah the 'Coded Language' bit that he performed on Def Poetry Jam was probably his biggest claim to fame.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nwwWbL2Ifq0

@Eng that's probably my favorite joint of his.

who's aesop rock?

An underground rapper that burst onto the scene in the early 2000s. That made his name by spitting off kilter and abstract lyrics that were/are often times nearly impossible to decipher. He's also white.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6D1U7QrtKM

^Basic Cable by Aesop Rock

So aesop

that was ill. i take back what i said about only hearing him acapella. thanks.

You have youtube. Go peep him see what you think. I personally like his track lucy from labor days. Its dope

Mos Def was the host/creator - wasn't he?

Stick with Tekashi69 playa lol.

Aesop Rock is a backpack rap star. Need a thesaurus when bumping him. He's a rhyming story teller with amazing vocab - like Immortal Technique lol.

Doubt you'd like tbh.

And the bullies’ll laugh, they won’t be laughing when their cover wagons crash
They won’t be laughing when they’re hosted by the ghost of Christmas past
They won’t be laughing when your blowup dolls got s headache and won’t give up the ass

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kCAt3GDo2o

There is a hole in front of the shovel
Shovel in front of the brawn
Six billion gorillas for whom the graves yawn
Each within his mulish days to choose his tool of trade
Dueling blades that cued a cruel charade and fuel the flames
Few would clue the crew into the civil
Skip the food and land like you the man
Who flew the coop over the pitbulls
Dash back flashy to compassionate nanopolice who sat beneath an avalanche of jagged inadequacies
And I was "Stop the Violence" more than I was Pontius Pilate
Cops and robbers riot by the five's obnoxious sirens
A is gullible he figure, "all man equal, no brainer"
Take it his friends and neighbors didn't cater
Moms raised the babies through a very churchy 80's
Sunday mornings reinforce the waiting gates of Hades
And he brazen but apparently inferno bound now
For when a man of cloth recite his wrongs he wouldn't bow down
The punishment should fit the reasons you must punish him
Never puncture skin or pull the colored rugs from under them
Two opposing mother ships shall not employ the gunners deck
Cause brotherhoods of public good do not employ the unctuous
And you. observe and have the givetheth disproportionate
To the taketh away decide to maketh his day (do it)
All the stoic odium glow in a cold holster
To where he coulda stood easily in the tub jugglin toasters

I picked the phone up with a grown-up mode approach
Skin crawlin off the drawl and now I claw the awkward tone up
I'd known it wasn't roses
But hoped it was less corrosive
Coastin to the focus of the grossest diagnosis
Like homes, the barnacles that chew upon the flesh of man
Have clued into the suitor was capital to a beggar's hand
And uncomfortably. sung a stubborn legacy of gluttony
With carnivores that burrow like hunters into the blood in meat - umm, what?
Chinny chin-up and the city picked this
In a pent-up letter numbed the spitting stigma
Along came a spider, sold her eggs to any buyer
Now to shoot a ringer back with six legs wider than the driver
If you make no friends on the way to the top rung
There is no secret handshake club I do not give a fuck
But know the cancers make the olive branches obviously standard
So when they extend from the yachts and mansions drop your canons
All kings hang em for the cliffs side drip dry
Will he clip the zipline or slip for his final dip dive?
If he live will he survive the milligrams of middle-ground
They pump into the pin-striped pentagrams over Tinsel-town
Or kill a man who trickled down the city with his scissors out
Or sickles, dipped in military hells bells and whistles
Riders to the east, not a wild tribes
Thank you for the peace on earth and mercy miles high


I always rly liked this track also..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhCg4DxAxXM

tech and aes are pretty far apart in just about everything.

tech has only gotten better as his career progressed (and i liked him back in '01, but was i also 11 at the time) but seems to have stopped making albums a while back. shame.

His Amethyst Rock star album used to get some play from me. Was produced by Rick Ruben.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7vdGdOpCDE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csTgUK6vx4Q

Tech? As in Tech Nine? Do you mean they are far apart from each other? Or a head of the pack? TechN9ne is pretty good at rhymes but not nearly the GOAT, Mac Lethal’s got him in chopping by allot. I agree as a lyricist Aesop’s really high, top 3.

I sure as hell dont

You into dudes, by any chance?