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?

Saul Williams is an American filmmaker, musician, poet, writer, and actor. Author of said the shotgun to the head and the dead emcee scrolls, Williams is known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip-hop, and for his lead roles in the independent film Slam and the jukebox musical Holler If Ya Hear Me. Saul starred as preacher Jedidiah Moore in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners. Recently, he was nominated for a 2026 Grammy Award.

Saul has toured in more than forty countries and lectured in hundreds of universities. He holds a BA in Theater and Philosophy from Morehouse College and MFA in Acting from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

Publication date: September 8, 2026

A Call To Arms
Introduction
1. In Terms of Culture—Shit, We Were Rich
2. The Artist Must Choose Sides
3. Freedom Ain’t Free
4. Violently Anti-Fascist
5. Race & Class Revelation to the Beat of the Drums
8. Zombification: Losing the Propaganda War
9. Where Poetry Led Me to Protest
10. The Pledge to Resist & The End of Empire
11. Boosting the Call