SAUL WILLIAMS IN CONVERSATION WITH DOMINIC CADOGAN

“Creative expression is necessary. If I didn’t do it, I’d be congested, I’d have too much trapped and I wouldn’t really be able to operate,” asserts Saul Williams on Zoom, calling in from his studio in the eternally sunny Los Angeles. It’s hardly a surprise, given that the multi-hyphenate creative was almost born in the middle of a James Brown concert – “The first poem of my career,” he shares. “It’s my favourite thing. I always ask my mom: ‘Tell me the story again. What song was he playing?’ – and that his musical hero Michael Jackson paid his way through college after reading Williams’ musings on misogyny in hiphop, although they sadly never connected before his death.

Since then, he’s made an undeniable impact with his groundbreaking music, poetry, and writings; fitting in film and television appearances (“my first love has always been acting,” he says) in-between where he can. With a career spanning decades, you’d forgive Williams for slowing down, but his insatiable ingenuity couldn’t possibly allow that, making way for his most challenging and rewarding project – a culmination of all his creative threads into a grand tapestry. Enter: Neptune Frost.

“Musicals have been something that I’ve had in the front of my mind that I placed in the back, so when the idea came it made me think:

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