
Saul Williams is a spoken word artist. While some opening acts have a hard time grasping an audience Saul had no issue at all. With no backing beats or music, He stood at his microphone reciting powerful poems touching on inequality, race issues, questioning life, and political issues. He only got positive feedback from a completely silent and attentive audience.
After about 4 or 5 poems he declared “I’m going to sing a song now” and changed from spoken word to singing Capella. Still not sticking to a normal performance or song structure by stopping and playing off the reactions from the crowd.
He also took a break and complimented toronto on our artists taking the top of the charts. As well as making comparisons to great American artists to Canadians
The set started out slow with a few songs, including some samples from a kayne song. Another was a mash up of Beatles, the police, and original content too. After 3 songs the crowd erupted when superstar started playing. K-OS performs with a live band, dj and hype man.
He put in a sample of we don’t need no education in the beginning of ‘Man I Used To Be’. The band also played with the instrumentals a bit compared to the originals and making them a little more funky. By this point the whole room was dancing along and having a great time with their hometown hero K-OS. Overall I think Toronto welcomed K-OS back with open arms, and it was a great environment to be in.