Saul Williams - The Dead Emcee Scrolls: The Lost Teachings of Hip-Hop.epub

In the underground labyrinths of New York City's subway system, beneath the third rail of a long forgotten line, Saul Williams discovered scrolls of aged yellowish-brown paper rolled tightly into a can of spray paint. His quest to decipher this mystical ancient text resulted in a primal understanding of the power hip-hop has to teach us about ourselves and the universe around us.

Now, for the first time, Saul Williams shares with the world the wonder revealed to him by the Dead Emcee Scrolls.

I have paraded as a poet for years now. In the proc ess of parading I may have actually become one, but that's another story, another book. This book is a book that I have been waiting to finish since 1995. This is the book that finished me. The story I am about to tell may sound fantastic. It may anger some of you who have followed my work. You may feel that you have come to know me over the years, and in some cases you have, but in others...well, this is a confession.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Williams is not the first to take hip-hop diction and rhyme to the page and make beautiful stanzaic poetry (see everyone from Gil Scott-Heron to Thomas Sayers Ellis), but he creates, in this third book, a kind of "In Memorium" for hip-hop's redemptive promise, trying, as Tennyson did, to find light shining through the wreckage of hope. If this effort falls short of that great poem, the ambition behind it is not the less for it. Skip the self-mythologizing intro and launch right into the long opening serial poem, "NGH WHT": "BCH NGH. Gun trigga. Dick's bigga. Why/ fuck? Killer. Blood spiller. Mack/ truck. Bad luck, fuckin with this black buck./ Bigger Thomas, I promise. Leave a corpse in/ the furnace." The sly way in which the speaker simultaneously inhabits and repudiates male rap clichés and effects sonic sneak attacks (one hears "kill her" in "killer") gets worked out over 33 "chapters" of anywhere from three to 10 stanzas, giving a fierce, assured tour of hip-hop history and contradiction. There are six other, shorter serial poems, and the book's last third consists of verse "Journal Entries." Williams, who starred in Slam, has authored two previous books, s/he and said the shotgun to the head; both are uneven and contain long, ambitious pieces, but neither has a poem like "NGH WHT."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Williams is the guy. He has chosen a sublime path in the hip-hop world: yes, a "road less traveled." He is the prototype synthesizer between poetry and hip-hop, stage and page, rap and prose, funk and mythology, slam and verse. He is one of spoken-word poetry's most charismatic performance poets alongside Regie Gibson and Patricia Smith. Williams opens for rock bands and appears in films and records with the legendary producer Rick Rubin. Avoiding classification, The Dead Emcee Scrolls is unique in voice, daring in its trust to chance, and more concerned with wordplay than grandeur. It is strongly musical, uncorrupted, raw, and challenging. These writings span Williams' artistic life since 1994, including journaling that charts his experiences in a clear, truthful hand, in spite of some metaphysical wanderings. Williams chose to preserve the passion and immediacy of his inspiration, but some reworking would clarify his vision. As it stands, this collection is frustrating and engaging, although there is a definite payoff for those who stick with it. Mark Eleveld
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved