lystn

Saul Williams is a poet, musician and actor who worked with the likes of Rick Rubin and Trent Reznor, creating some of the most progressive, genre-bending and conceptual Hip Hop with albums like "The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust" and 2016's "MartyrLoserKing." The latter was based around the story of a hacker and coltan miner from Burundi who, under the screen name MartyrLoserKing, is waging cyber resistance against authoritarian imperialist governments and oppressive global capitalist forces. His new album "Encrypted a Vulnerable" expands the socio-political narrative into a long-form multimedia project, serving as an album and a soundtrack to an upcoming film "Neptune Frost." This second part of the saga tells the story of an intersex Ugandan runaway who has a love relationship with MartyrLoserKing and joins the hacking collective. We spoke with the multi-media artist, and soon to be film director, about the afrofuturist cyber punk journey he's taking us on through the interconnected projects that tie the MartyrLoserKing narrative.