.com Performed by a raucous sextet made up of beats, bass, guitar, cello, viola, and griot, Saul Williams hip-hop sounds like modern chamber music. It's music informed as much by Hendrix's star-strangled striations and Miles Davis's alchemical electric period as it is the krunk-krunk of contemporary hip-hop. On Amethyst Rock Star Williams exorcises urban music of its self-destructive excess, channeling its rowdy energy into a ritualized raising of consciousness. The single "Penny for a Thought" breaks into jacked-up breakbeats as Williams calls out those who sell their souls into artistic slavery for the same chump change paid to their chained ancestors. He makes like a soothsayer on "Robeson," reeling off a call for the heroic figures of the past to make their presence known in the future. Williams's singing voice is as robust as his words, soaring like a veteran rock croaker; on "Fearless" he attempts to dissolve the influence of an unnameable "she" on his psyche by spontaneously bursting into song. "Coded Language," a linguistic mantra first recorded for the DJ Krust album of the same name, makes a return appearance, sounding not a bit out of place with its warp-speed breaks and nitroglycerin orchestration. Saul breaks out on the epic closer, "Wine," a torch-burning call for collective empowerment that comes off like Purple Rain for the no-age generation. --Chris Campion
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