No one on earth could possibly make beats or rhymes as sick as CX KidTronic and Saul Williams. They must be visiting from a rubber planet made of speakers where philosophy, beat science, poetry and English are taught from pre-birth.

I had the absolute pleasure of seeing Saul Williams and CX perform at the recent Oppikoppi Rock Paper Scissors festival, where myself and Richard III were spinning beats and where we recorded episode 10 of Seedcast live. I also drank too much, slept in my car and got roped into announcing on the Sipho Gumede Stage. It was pleasant.

Saul Williams was included in the line-up as part of a recent South African tour. It’s been a while since I’ve heard something really original, but Saul blew me away; especially with CX handling the beats – which were completely unlike anything I’ve ever heard before and certainly too good to be carelessly dumped on with genre-comparing.

After the show Saul was chilling back stage and CX disappeared (probably had to fetch more Pepsi in the spaceship). Kenny (DJ Kenzhero) asked me to take a pic of him and Saul with my mobile phone, which, as you can see, takes grainy, kak pics – especially at night.
Respect Saul – your music and poetry is amazing and it was an honour to meet you.

If you aren’t familiar with Saul Williams, look for his self-titled album, Saul Williams and find out what I’m on about. He also has a book available called The Dead Emcee Scrolls: The Lost Teachings of Hip Hop.

And, of course, if you can see Saul and Tronic performing live, don’t miss it. You won’t be disapointed.

Other aliens I saw at this year’s Oppikoppi: The Real Estate Agents, Lark, A Blunted Stuntman, Fletcher, Teba, Goldfish, Obita, Jacob Israel, DJ Kenzhero… and all on the fattest sounding stage I’ve ever heard, thanks to soundmen Rasta, Lito and DJ Bob.