Saul Williams – Telegram

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjvVf2PKoV4&NR=1

 

Saul Williams – Telegram 

 

“I’m falling up flights of stairs” is a great image, as it is impossible for one to do but it captured me, also the whole thing is abstract and obscene is it’s a good start.  The delivery of the line was important, as it’s the opening.  He pauses and looks away, keeping a solemn expression, this pause also emphasises the line brake and as a piece of literature the use of punctuation.  “Scraping myself from the sidewalk, jumping from rivers to bridges, drowning in pure air” each line displays himself doing a different physical activity that is more extreme.  The last line drowning in pure air is a powerful metaphor- and leads on to the next line about Hip Hop without a pause, like the others- this brakes the pattern and rhythm he had going but also adds greater meaning to the connecting lines.  He begins to show the images with his hands.  It looks quite natural but his hands begin moving up and around his body when showing the blood on his flesh, and his shoulders curl up as if to show mangled flesh, and then his hands diving and swooping forward showing the stuffing of a bag.  “Over sized record bag” maybe a metaphor for the labels and brackets music and more specifically Jazz and Hip Hop is slammed with.  By now his body has already turned roughly forty-five degrees, and when he shows the “tuber lips” his hands slowly expand showing the swollen lips- and there is a rhythm, which he dictates, his facial expression and vocal tones add to the growing intensity.  “Diamond shredded teeth” he shows with his fingers to then do the action of throwing.  His expression appears engaged and intense, as his eyes squint and entire body moves as a rhythmical unison when doing an action.  “Dissonant chords find necks like nooses” is a great line, and his showing of it is allows one to view the words in action (with a little imagination).  His facial expression shows despair and emotion one would expect to see of someone who is being hung.  All of this is whirling round with abstract images tying them together, but in the bigger picture it is Hip Hop which he is stating is the dissonant chords that find necks and are hanging them, which is “Harlem” who is tied by the rope – Harlem and other communities where Hip Hop began are being strangled, by the music created by it’s own culture, but they are still in complete rhythm and synchronisation with the music.  And damn that loop is tight, not only refers to the loop he has made an image of, and the loops made through music but the loop holding and strangling the culture and communities.  “Nigga’s are gona die, cop car swerves to the side of the road” he throws his hands in and out, and uses them to show the car moving, his body leans to the side as if he is having to move for the swerving car, when referring to the swerving car his facial expression had a moment of surprise – possibly him being in the complete moment of his words and actions. 

 

He scribbles on his hands, and balls them into a fist – while keeping his rhythm and pronunciation relatively clear – this creates the tense atmosphere that the scene he is depicting has – where there is a great numbering of things happening at once and it’s all to much to take in, for it to then calm down as there is someone of authority to control it. 

 

Saul Williams, remains still when repeating “you have the right to remain silent” this is important as his lack of movement may count as the silence, but also it helps the image of person in authority telling you your rights, as he shows little or no facial expression with the repetition. 

 

He then begins with “Telegram to hip hop- stop”, moving his index finger into the air, as if saying I am now talking, and listen.  He turns his head to the side empathising – stop, this then becomes a theme where every time he says “stop” he turns his head his right, becoming a mere nod as he reaches the end of the poem. 

 

The telegram to Hip Hop is in a form a summary of the poem, as he said earlier Harlem is “shaken from a rope but still on beat” and now he says “the ghetto’s are dancing of beat” does that mean as a collective, or they were not on beat in the first place, or am I reading it to literally.  But where he says “the masters of the ceremony have forgotten they were once slaves and have neglected the occasion of this ceremony” ties in well with earlier on when he said (as an emcee) “I can’t wait to play myself at the party tonight, nigga’s are gonna die”, as I saw that as an example of an emcee forgetting why and what they are representing and celebrating.  By this point the turning of his head has became a nod, and it is as if it is in complete affirmation of the words he is saying, rather than telling someone or people to stop.  Through out this ending part he remains still and relatively expressionless, which is good, as he is giving orders in a solemn manner.  He then leans into state, give my regards to Brooklyn – the mother town of Hip Hop as that is where the culture first came together as one and erupted into the underground culture of the eighties in America.