BLACK FRIDAY 2018 Saul Williams - The Inevitable Rise And Liberation Of Niggy Tardust (10th Anniversary) Aug 04, 2008 Listen to The Inevitable Rise And Liberation Of Niggy Tardust Explicit by Saul Williams and 50 million songs with Amazon Music Unlimited. $9.99/month after. The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust grafts more than its title from David Bowie's classic The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Niggy is Williams' alter ego just as Ziggy was Bowie's. By invoking the master of disguise, the weight falls on Williams' to deliver an album worthy of that comparison.

The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! is the third solo studio album by Saul Williams. It was released in 2007.^[1] It peaked at number 41 on the BillboardHeatseekers Albums chart,^[2] as well as number 89 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.^[3] The album is entirely produced by Trent Reznor.^[4] The title of the album is a reference to David Bowie's 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.^[5]

Release[edit]

The album was available for purchase or free download at NiggyTardust.com. The website allowed users to pay $5 to support the artist and be given the choice of downloading a 192kbit/s MP3 version, 320kbit/s MP3 version or lossless FLAC version.^[6] Digital distribution of the album is provided by Musicane. Reznor publicised the album on the Nine Inch Nails website and mailing list, saying that 'Saul's not the household name that Radiohead is' and urging fans to support him.^[7] This was a reference to Radiohead's In Rainbows, which was released in October on the band's own website with customers choosing how much they want to pay for the album. The free option has since been removed, with a message on the website claiming their intention had always been to remove it after 100,000 free downloads of the album.^[8]

It was announced at nin.com that, as of January 2, 2008, two months since its release, 154,449 people had downloaded NiggyTardust. Of that number, 28,322 people chose to pay the asked price of $5 USD ($141,610 USD Total). In comparison, Saul's self-titled album has sold 30,000 copies since its release in 2004.^[9]

A physical release of the album was released on July 8, 2008. It contained five bonus tracks.^[10]

Critical reception[edit]

Thom Jurek of AllMusic gave the album 4.5 stars out of 5, saying: 'This is Williams' finest moment, and interestingly, one of Reznor's, too.'^[11]

Quentin B. Huff of PopMatters placed it at number 12 on the '101 Hip-Hop Albums of 2007' list.^[17]

Track listing[edit]

All tracks are written by Saul Williams and Trent Reznor, except where noted.

Personnel[edit]

Credits adapted from liner notes.

Musicians

• Saul Williams – vocals, programming
• Trent Reznor – production, programming, backing vocals (5, 8)
• Atticus Ross – additional programming
• Thavius Beck – production (1, 7), programming (1, 7)
• CX KiDTRONiK – production, programming, backing vocals (1, 6)
• Isaiah 'Ikey' Owens – keyboards (7)
• Xuly Azaro – backing vocals (9)
• Maryam Nalo Blacksher – viola (13)
• Gingger Shankar – double violin (13)
• Persia White – backing vocals (11)
• Alan Moulder – mixing
• Brian Gardner – mastering

Technical personnel

• Angelbert Metoyer – artwork
• Melody Ehsani – cover art, jewelry design
• Rob Sheridan – graphic design, layout

Charts[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^Saul Williams: NiggyTardust.com website. Retrieved on January 26, 2008. Archived October 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
2. ^ ^ab'Saul Williams: Chart History (Heatseekers Albums)'. Billboard. Retrieved October 3, 2018.
3. ^ ^ab'Saul Williams: Chart History (Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums)'. Billboard. Retrieved October 3, 2018.
4. ^'Saul Williams and Trent Reznor Offer New Album As Free Download'. The Fader. October 25, 2007. Retrieved October 3, 2018.
5. ^Harding, Cortney (November 7, 2007). 'The Billboard Q&A: Trent Reznor And Saul Williams'. Billboard. Retrieved October 3, 2018.
6. ^Download info: NiggyTardust.com website. Retrieved on January 26, 2008. Archived October 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
7. ^Reznor, Trent (2007-10-25). 'NiggyTardust!'. The official Nine Inch Nails website. Retrieved 2007-10-29.
8. ^Download info: NiggyTardust.com website Archived January 11, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
9. ^Download infoArchived January 7, 2008, at the Wayback Machine: Digg.com website. Retrieved on January 26, 2008.
10. ^MVRemix, [1], MVRemix Urban, May 23, 2008, Retrieved May 28, 2008.
11. ^ ^abJurek, Thom. 'The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust - Saul Williams'. AllMusic. Retrieved October 3, 2018.
12. ^Koski, Genevieve (November 27, 2007). 'Saul Williams: The Inevitable Rise And Liberation Of Niggy Tardust'. The A.V. Club. Retrieved October 3, 2018.
13. ^Christgau, Robert. 'Saul Williams'. Christgau's Consumer Guide. Retrieved May 15, 2017.
14. ^Patrin, Nate (November 9, 2007). 'Saul Williams: The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!'. Pitchfork. Retrieved October 3, 2018.
15. ^Sirota, Eric (March 23, 2010). 'Saul Williams :: The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust :: Fader'. RapReviews.com. Retrieved October 3, 2018.
16. ^Christgau, Robert (November 29, 2007). 'Saul Williams: The Inevitable Rise And Liberation Of Niggy Tardust'. Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on December 23, 2007. Retrieved October 3, 2018.
17. ^Huff, Quentin B. (January 15, 2008). '101 Hip-Hop Albums of 2007'. PopMatters. Retrieved October 3, 2018.

External links[edit]

• The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! at Discogs (list of releases)
• The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! at MusicBrainz (list of releases)
• Reelblack TV interview on YouTube

Be it as a poet or rapper, writer or actor, cultural watch dog or simply a street savvy philosopher, Saul Williams has a voice worth listening to. First introduced to the world in the 1998 independent feature film Slam, the native New Yorker has welded his undeniable way with words-both spoken and harmonized-to captivate his audiences. His newest album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust, doesn’t just mark an evolutionary step in his artistic journey, (“[It’s] the album I have been trying to make for years,” Williams said), it also provides a groin kick straight to the recording industry-a world that eats up creativity only to spit out dollars. Produced by Trent Reznor and available exclusively through Williams’s Web site for a mere $5, Niggy Tardust is one hell of a lyric-and-beat-heavy ride. And its release has made Williams one of the first real non-mainstream artists to take the power back from the labels and offer up their work, essentially for free, on the Web. What’s most surprising, the album far out-sold Williams’s previous two records.

Returning to Santa Barbara for the first time in more than a year-and promising an all-out poetry-meets-punk, hip-hop-meets-heavy-metal assault-Williams hits Velvet Jones this Saturday, March 22. I caught up Williams earlier this month. What follows is a portion of that conversation.

So you are coming back to Santa Babylon and you’ve got a new album. What can we expect in the show? A little bit of everything. But the main focus is Niggy Tardust. It’s the Guitar Spangled Banner Tour and it’s completely connected to the character I created for this album.

So you are in character when you perform Niggy tunes? Ahh yeah. That’s the thing-Niggy Tardust itself is a hybrid. Who I am is absorbed within who that character is, and my estimation of who we all are is absorbed within who that character is.

So Niggy is a little bit of all of us? I basically describe him as an angel of mercy. It’s like when your voice of reason comes with a song instead of a gun. Essentially he is, as I said, a hybrid. What I mean by that is that he encompasses all the things that it means to be alive and of a healthy mind state and American in this day and age, which means he is beyond being, you know, beyond belonging to a particular race or a particular genre. He realizes all of those things come to be who he is. He is the ideal American; someone who realizes he isn’t the box he was born into.

How did you decide to create a new persona for an album? What inspired you? Life and my own personal experiences. We are all caught in the boxes we are born in. I had to fight with record label executives who, after taking one look at me, imagined exactly how my music should sound; people who, after taking one look at me, automatically think they know who I am, or where I am from, or how my voice should sound. I think we all have been somewhat victimized by the polarity that exists from the boundaries that we instill on our children in the name of race, nationality, gender, and all of these things. Where Ziggy Stardust (or really, David Bowie) raised questions about androgyny and those characteristics that we deem feminine or masculine, Niggy Tardust is here to raise questions about even more. Everything, like, isn’t race a social construct? It’s 2008 and we all know that science has disproved the theory of race, yet we all still swear by it. : Niggy Tardust is just somebody who dares to live beyond it.

It was your poetry that introduced you to the world at large. Are you still writing? Oh definitely. But poetry isn’t really something you do. It is a way of living and looking at life. Poetry is one of the nicknames of philosophy. It’s a cathartic process of emoting and channeling your experience so that I am always writing in my journal. And if I share what is in my journal with anyone, then it’s no longer a journal entry-it is called a poem.

Saul Williams Niggy Tardust

You have never been one to shy from politics and right now is a very interesting political time. How are you feeling about the landscape these days? Pretty crazy, man. It’s exciting. I’m definitely someone that has been run over by Barack Obama and I’m excited, but it’s weird. I basically liken [it] to, if you have a little sister who has gone through a horrible breakup with someone who has cheated on her and just crushed her; and you have seen her go through years of depression and finally she has fallen in love again and the whole family is like, “Oh my God, I hope this guy doesn’t hurt her,” because if he does you know how jaded she will become. In that same way, I look at hope as being a beautiful thing, but also a dangerous thing. Because if now all those people who are now stepping up to the plate have their hopes let down in any way-not by Barack, but by the system that exists around him-then we will be living in dangerous times, as we already are.

If you had to, what words would you use to describe your music? I’d ascribe many, but that’s why Niggy Tardust exists as a hybrid. I could call myself black if I want to, because that’s how I appear. But anyone black in America knows that if they exist in this day and age they definitely have white blood in them, and probably have indigenous Native American blood in them-so that calling myself one thing is just a choice. It’s the same way that we call Barack Obama black even though he is a hybrid. We could just as easily call him white and not put anything after it. But we’ve taken sides. So you are asking me to take sides with my music.

: In a hip-hop setting I’d say it’s hip-hop. In a punk setting I’d say, “Oh it’s definitely punk.” In a rock setting I’d say, “Oh yeah, it’s rock” : And in all of those settings I’d be right. Hybrid-that’s the word I’m pushing. : It’s not that it’s genre bending-it’s beyond genre bending. It’s a middle finger up the idea of genre, up race, up all of these boundaries that never even fucking existed in the first place.

You hear all the time that “one world” is the direction we are headed as a culture. Exactly. But we are already there. That’s why everybody can get behind Obama-not because he is a black man, but because he is hybrid. That is what is so interesting to me about [laughs]-wow, I almost just called Hillary Clinton “Whitney Huston”-what she, and now John McCain, are attempting to do by pointing out the idea of Barack not having enough experience. That’s a really interesting thing to me because, as an African American, the type of experience I’d look for in a candidate would be the sort of experience someone would have when they are not born under this sort of blindsided privilege that being born white in America gives you, and that’s what excites me about him. He has the experience of knowing what it feels like to be overlooked in this country, and to be judged and disqualified before you even open your mouth. That’s the experience that they don’t have. Washington is not going to give you that experience.

So in this day of the emerging hybrid, what happens next? Where does Niggy Tardust go from here? I already told you, man-the White House!

4•1•1

Saul Williams will play Velvet Jones (423 State St.) on Saturday, March 22. Call 965-8676, or visit velvet-jones.com for details.

Saul Williams Niggy Stardust Rare