Poetry in motion

TUESDAY was a typically busy day for Saul Williams. Seven dates into a monthlong North American tour in support of his new album, “The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!,” the writer-actor-musician was passing through the town he lives in for a sold-out concert that night at the Troubadour. Before showtime there was much to accomplish: visiting several schools his daughter might attend this fall; giving an interview; and sharing a late lunch with a pair of fans who bid on the opportunity in an auction benefiting the Shine on Sierra Leone organization.

A hectic schedule is nothing new for Williams, who first drew acclaim in Marc Levin’s 1998 slam-poetry feature “Slam.” In the last decade, Williams has split his time in various pursuits, building a sizable body of work (including books, movies, TV shows and albums) that asks serious (and some not-so-serious) questions about the American circumstance.

Williams is attracted to big topics -- race, war, history, sex -- and he attacks them ferociously. On “NiggyTardust!,” a set of discordant industrial-rap songs he made with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Williams rarely pauses for breath; the music throbs and clangs with insistent forward motion. “I like urgency and the idea of being in a hurry,” he says, sipping apple-carrot-ginger juice in West Hollywood a few hours before Tuesday’s sound check. “Maya Angelou once said that anything a writer writes should be written as though someone were holding a gun to their head. If you’re not comfortable with these being your last words, I don’t want to read it.”

“Saul is Dylan-esque,” says Jacob Hoye, publisher of MTV Books, which has issued several collections of Williams’ poetry. “You watch him onstage, and it reminds you of that ‘60s footage of people watching Dylan perform in utter silence.”

“I’ve never looked at Saul as just a rapper,” adds Thavius Beck, an L.A.-based producer who worked on “NiggyTardust!” as well as Williams’ 2004 CD. “He’s someone who has a very commanding presence and is able to convey his ideas without needing much direction. Certain people need nudging in the studio. Saul definitely knows what he wants to do.”

At the Troubadour, sporting an electric-blue Mohawk and a marching-band jacket with a cape of multicolored fake fur, Williams held his audience’s attention rapt as he delivered “NiggyTardust!” tracks, including “Tr(n)igger,” which samples Public Enemy’s “Welcome to the Terrordome,” and “No One Ever Does,” a rare moment of repose amid the chaos.

In fact, the attention might’ve been a little too rapt: “You can critique this and analyze it after you leave,” Williams announced at one point. “While you’re here, just have a good time.”

Williams, 35, wasn’t much of a Nine Inch Nails fan when Reznor, who’d seen the video for Williams’ song “List of Demands (Reparations),” asked him to open for NIN on a Europe tour in summer 2005. Upon returning to the U.S., Williams and Reznor deepened their collaboration when Nine Inch Nails played in New Orleans a mere two months after Katrina.

“Trent was like, ‘I feel stupid up there,’ ” Williams remembers. “ ‘I need songs that address what’s just happened in the country. Would you mind if I brought you on the road with me -- but if instead of bringing your band, I taught my band your songs and you came out in the middle of our set and we backed you up for five songs?’ I was like, ‘Uh, OK!’ ”

While on tour the pair began work on what would become “NiggyTardust!”

Williams completed the project in August. Inspired by Radiohead’s decision to release “In Rainbows” as a pay-what-you-like download, he and Reznor made two versions of the album available through niggytardust.com, one free and a higher-quality download costing $5.

A post on Reznor’s website says “NiggyTardust!” had been downloaded 150,000 times by early January -- nearly five times the number of copies either of Williams’ previous studio albums has sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The Fader label, which released “Saul Williams,” plans to issue an expanded version of “NiggyTardust!” on CD and vinyl in late May. President Jon Cohen said there was initial uncertainty at the label about trying to sell a work that’s already been available free.

“But Cohen says the principal goal of the “NiggyTardust!” digital release was to “grow Saul’s fan base,” a mission that’s been helped by a new Nike commercial that uses “List of Demands” as its soundtrack. He expects sales of the expanded “NiggyTardust!” to “match or exceed” those of Williams’ first two records.

Williams will take whatever he can get. “Lots of people believe that the kind of stuff I’m doing should be underground -- that it validates your art to not be able to live off it,” he says. “But I think what we’re doing belongs in the mainstream. Let the stupid stuff be underground.”