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Saul Williams Releases Music Video for “Dare,” Announces Vinyl Release of ‘Encrypted & Vulnerable’

Saul Williams released his video for “Dare” on 9/18/19 — taken from Williams’ album Encrypted & Vulnerable (out now via Pirates Blend), Complex called the song “a cacophonous whirlwind of distorted noise and industrial rhythms, held together by the rapper, actor, author and poet’s free-flowing, spoken word style.” A limited vinyl release of Encrypted & Vulnerable was also announced today, preorder HERE.

Watch Saul Williams’ Video for “Dare”:

“The only patience I have nowadays is for truth or dare,” Williams tells Complex. “The courage that it takes for a society to face the truth, to let go of denial, to give up the narrative that always paints you as the winner, to destroy the systems that restrict growth and the possibility of change or actual justice, to realize when your actions, or your lack of action, your silence, your jokes, your religiosity, your ego, does no more than perpetuate the violence enacted against generations of disenfranchised people; the courage to acknowledge and relinquish your privilege, your position… if you’re a dude- the courage to shut up and listen, to not flex or feel attacked by mere mention of a truth, to find the right question, to realize when your truth is not necessarily THE truth, when you’re part of the problem, when you’re just another dude rapping about his dick, or defining his manhood by conquest, or using the excuse that “it’s always been this way” as a reason to not approach it differently… if you can’t find the courage to face a truth beyond your supposed flyness, beyond your patriotic or patriarchal duties (which is always & simply to uphold the patriarchy each and every time you defend it), beyond your fidelity to your job, or your bank account, or your status as popular, if that’s all that’s important to you: Fuck you. Think different. I dare you.”

The second in Williams’ three album-series and multi-tiered MartyrLoserKing project, Encrypted & Vulnerable also serves as the score to his upcoming musical and film Neptune Frost. Executive produced by Lin-Manuel Miranda and based on Williams’ MartyrLoserKing graphic novel (out in 2020 via First Second Books), Neptune Frost follows the story of African hackers living in a village made of upcycled computer parts. Watch a trailer for Neptune Frost:

Produced by Williams himself, Encrypted & Vulnerable is mixed by Warp Records artist Gonjasufi, and features contributions from Dave Sitek (TV on the Radio), My Brightest Diamond, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, astrophysicist Bianca Rhym, King Britt, Orko Eloheim, Thavius Beck, CX KiDTRONiK, Paul Whiteman, and Lippie. Williams explains that the album “is simultaneously a personal and intimately optimistic takedown on struggle, defiance, awareness, aloneness, and a takedown of heteronormative capitalistic patriarchal authoritarian politics in topics ranging from love, technology, religion, war, to migration.”

Williams has been breaking ground since his debut album, Amethyst Rock Star, was released in 2001 and executive produced by Rick Rubin. After gaining global fame for his poetry and writings at the turn of the century, Williams has performed in over 30 countries and read in over 300 universities, with invitations that have spanned from the White House, the Sydney Opera House, Lincoln Center, The Louvre, The Getty Center, Queen Elizabeth Hall, to countless, villages, townships, community centers, and prisons across the world. The Newburgh, New York native gained a BA from Morehouse and an MFA from Tisch, and has gone on to record with Nine Inch Nails and Allen Ginsberg, as well as countless film and television appearances.

Williams will play Red Bay Coffee in Oakland on September 28th.

TRACKLIST:

1. Coronation As Harness
2. I Own The Night (Sufi Vision)
3. Experiment
4. Underground
5. Before The War
6. People Above The Moon
7. Encrypted & Vulnerable (feat. Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah)
8. Fight Everything
9. Dare
10. Full Of Shit (feat. Lippie)
11. Infinite
12. Magnify The Feeling
13. Thought About It
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