Saul Williams performed live last night to a crowd of about two hundred folks at Shattuck Down Low here in Berkeley. Sporting a blue feather mohawk, he strutted the stage, even jumping into the crowd during his rawkin'(!) "List of Demands." Most of what he played was off his new The Rise and LIberation of Niggy Tardust (produced by Trent Reznor and released cheaply [freely?] on the internet).

I mentioned a few posts ago about how weird it was to be a Kentuckian at a Bluegrass festival in California. Being among a crowd of white people at a progressive hip-hop show can also be very strange. On the one hand, the artists must remain confrontational toward their audience (in this respect they must adopt a kind of punk persona for the stage). On the other, (I suppose because everyone's supposed to be so liberal?) the white audience is supposed to act like they're in on the whole thing -- "Yeah, I mean white people really are fucked up.... Yeah, fuck the man..." The artists MUST call the audience out for being yuppie college liberals - many self-styled intellectuals like myself - and the audience must act like it's so cool and so in-the-know that it has already seen through and surpassed whatever criticism comes from the stage.

I was at a Blackilicious show in Lexington, Ky a couple of years ago and the weirdest part about the whole thing was that all the white people (and it was PACKED) felt entitled to be there. Anyway, this is treacherous territory...

He played Black Stacey:

Also, the supporting act, Ill-Literacy, was a lot of fun and definitely worth checking out.