Saul Williams

Note to all: mediocrity never achieved shit.

It's acceptance and intelligence over ignorance and the inane - call me lazy for brandishing my indie-snob sword and pointing it towards such an easy target, but Live8 meant what to the majority? An awareness-raising aid to instigate change within the hearts and minds of the masses? Or an excuse to wave Union Jacks at pop stars past their prime? Well, what do you think?

Acceptance is embracing the unfamiliar, the contrary and the conceptual; intelligence is using such weapons in a way that highlights only the good and positive rather than championing and romanticising the gritty and rugged. Saul Williams is hip-hop's shining hope in an epic blackness of blasé boasters and bling-ed booty callers; what Snoop D-O-double-G dropped in Hyde Park 'cause it was too hot, Williams re-ignites and allows to burn even brighter, the ingrained image sharper and clearer than ever. 'PG' sets the stall: "Ain't got no guns or weapons, Hell nigga, I ain't hard. I'd rather help than fight you, I'd rather hug than swing, I know where diamonds come from and I ain't about to bling..."

Drop it like it's hot? Hell, Hyde Park, you weren't even lukewarm. What Williams raps is universal sense in a sea of hyperbole; his messages are ones that resonate within brain cavities both close to home and far away. 'African Student Movement' says more about liberation, struggle, determination and change through its simple, mostly delivered deadpan lyrics than 'Money'; 'Act III Scene 2 (Shakespeare)', more about how the most powerful refuse to compromise when the needy are absolutely exploited than 'Let Me Entertain You'.

Yes, _do_ call me lazy, 'cause I deserve it; what Saul Williams deserves though is a stage ten-times as large as this one. Tonight's tightly packed, sweaty and borderline rabid crowd welcome and worship him as if London comprised a hometown show. His between-song interaction - quips always delivered with a slightly apologetic tone, as if he fears becoming just another shepherd watching over a flock sold on hollow promises, however slickly rhymed (that, or the ghosts of a thousand jazz musicians haunting this space are putting him on edge) - is both insightful and amusing. His comments on his home country's hostilities and its utter inability to co-operate with other G8 countries on the essential foundation stones of everything the previous day's events were meant to highlight are incisive and greeted by roars of appreciative agreement. His performance, all told, electrifies like sticking two moistened fingers into the mains.

Again, smite me with your critical catcalls: "Lazy." Yes, this is: Saul Williams might just be the closest thing hip-hop has to a Dylan figure, be it Bob or Thomas. He commands the intelligent - through subtlety and grace rather than simple beatbox bludgeoning - like none other, and spreads positive vibes through intense personal traumas ('Black Stacey' and 'I Am', for example) in a way totally unbecoming of any so-called peers. Accept this: Williams is 2005's brightest star (genre doesn't come into it), a figure who could, given the right stage, spearhead real change in whatever way required. What’s more, he’s every intention of literally showing you the stars themselves, of helping you see beyond the face-value and the thinly-veiled half-truths that blight so much of what the media spoon feeds us. Tonight's set isn't just captivating - it steals the mind away and clamps it between forearm and gut until kick-out time, leaving the attendee both dizzied and invigorated. It's intensity of a kind to be gorged upon as often as possible - a pure and true fusion of intellect and musical muscle, of the harangued and the heavenly.