In a new interview with Salon, actor/rapper/social activist/spoken word legend Saul Williams says he’s long identified as queer. The new lyric video for his track “Think Like They Say” (from his latest album Martyr Loser King), finds him exploring the fluidity of both sexuality and gender.
In the interview, in which he also reveals that his pastor father was gay and closeted, he says, “I told my parents I wanted to be an actor when I was eight. My parents were old-school and my dad was like, ‘You can’t be an actor unless you tap.’ The old-school Broadway approach. So I took my first tap class, and I came home and said, ‘I hate it, and I’m the only guy in the class. I feel like a faggot.’ My little eight-year-old, I-learned-this-word-in-school self.
And my dad was like, ‘Look, you need to reassess what you’re telling me you love in life and what you want to do – acting, performing. You need to make peace with life and gender and all of this stuff now.’
From that moment I didn’t necessarily have the language, but I was identifying as queer, and as open.”
Below are the videos for “Think Like They Say,” and a classic spoken word performance by Williams.
All photos by
Onaje Scott
