Saul Williams returns to Big Dada for first solo album in seven years

Saul Williams, known for blending poetry with hip-hop and experimental sound, is returning to the label Big Dada with his first full-length solo album in seven years. Leap Life arrives Aug. 28, alongside a new book, Songs My Mother Taught Me: Why the Artist Must Take Sides, out Sept. 8 via Haymarket Books.

The poet, musician, director and actor said the record and the book, which explores how artists must respond to systemic violence and injustice, both came together between March and August of last year. "I recorded Leap Life and wrote the book," Williams said, describing it as a moment when he felt it was "time to shift gears."

Recent live shows with the Detroit techno collective Underground Resistance shaped the record's energy, Williams said. The two acts met for the first time only weeks before the album's completion, after Underground Resistance remixed one of his songs. "I had been a fan for ages, and evidently, they were fans as well," he said of the pairing.

The album's title echoes Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life" without directly referencing it, Williams said, a connection he made while reading a collection of letters between Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps spanning four decades. Big Dada also released Williams' first EP early in his career, giving the new record's return to the label an added layer of significance.

Williams described the overall process of making Leap Life as one of "synchronicity," pointing to Carlos Niño, who worked on part of the album and was the first person to fly him out to Los Angeles to perform decades earlier, as one of several full-circle connections that shaped the record.