Songs My Mother Taught Me

Award-winning poet and performer Saul Williams explores how artists today must respond to systemic violence and injustice-in the words of Paul Robeson, by choosing sides.Songs My Mother Taught Me is Williams clear-eyed exploration of the role of the artist in these times by answering the question: what radicalized you? He answers by examining how his role models writers and artists, from Amiri Baraka to local musicians in Brazilian bars to Palestinian hip-hop heads have responded to imperialist violence, oppression, and genocide. Riffing on Paul Robeson s famous declaration, Williams builds a provocative case for why today s artists cannot remain neutral in the face of injustice. We need songs that crumble empires, he writes, films that teach, remind, and inspire, poems that would make a despot revoke your citizenship. The radical artists of the Vanguard Series offer new poetry and prose to answer the question, What does poetry have to do with politics?