Saul Williams Meets Carlos Niño & Friends

During the last 30 years, both Saul Williams and Carlos Niño have widened the possibilities of music, of the spaces and structures it can explore and upend. Williams has done that work through variations of slam poetry, for which he became a kind of global spokesperson and advocate after his 1998 film, Slam. His albums, books, articles, and performances have examined and excoriated American power structures, imagining the potential of being honest about the past and open about the future. A Santa Monica native, Niño’s music has also imagined new futures since he began building limitless cadres of collaborators as a teenager, bringing together jazz players with ambient visionaries, hip-hop pioneers with contemporary composers. Though his work on André 3000’s New Blue Sun broadcast his mission to the broader world, he has been shapeshifting within a loose spiritual jazz framework for decades.

Despite being longtime friends, Williams and Niño had never properly collaborated until they rendezvoused in a forested Los Angeles glade in mid-December 2024. Niño had built an intuitive, trans-generational ensemble to respond in real time to Williams’ musings about the Dutch East India Company, colonial land-grabs, and the quest to restore power and places to people who can truly care for them. The result, documented on a 2025 live LP, made for a rapturous but subtle listen. Out in front with his oaken voice, Williams spoke of sociopolitical problems with gumption, grace, and wit; at the edges, Niño and a cast that included Kamasi Washington and Nate Mercereau reacted with conviction and curiosity, like a choir calling back to its minister. At Big Ears 2026, Williams, Niño, and some of their shared friends meet once again.