Saul Williams, the quintessential “neo-renaissance” artist, will be delivering his unique mixture of hip-hop influenced poetry at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday at the Sac State University Union Ballroom. He will perform material featured in his work “The Dead Emcee Scrolls.”

Williams is one of the most celebrated practitioners of the art of spoken word in the world today. His poetry has been featured in multiple mediums in which he has garnered worldwide acclaim and countless awards.

Williams’s rise to fame started briefly after attaining his Bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Morehouse College. After moving to New York to work on his Master’s degree in acting at New York University, Williams became a staple performer in the city’s underground slam poetry scene of the mid-nineties.

The socio-politically charged wordsmith became such an iconic figure in the world of spoken word poetry, that he was featured in the independent film “Slam” in 1998. The film starred Williams in the role of a prison inmate that learns to use poetry to cope, uplift and educate while incarcerated.

“Slam” was introduced to worldwide audiences at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival where the film won the coveted “Grand Jury Prize”. It also went on to win the Cannes Film Festival’s “Cannes Camera D’Or,” and the Perry Ellis Breakthrough Award from New York’s Independent Film Project (IFP.) Williams was also nominated for a Spirit Award for best performance.

Besides showcasing Williams’s versatility as an artist, the film more importantly introduced the world to Williams’s particular flavor of linguistic virtuosity. Williams also played prominent roles in two documentaries: “Underground Voices” and “SlamNation”.

Over the past 10 years, Williams has also lent his talents to a wide variety of notable recording artists including Nas, Erykah Badu, De La Soul, The Fugees, KRS-1, DJ Krust, as well as fellow poets Sonia Sanchez and Allen Ginsberg.

He currently has a self-titled album in stores now, as well as the albums “Amethyst Rock Star,” “Penny for a Thought / Purple Pigeons” and “Not in My Name”.

Williams has had several books of his works published such as “The Seventh Octave,” “Said the Shotgun to the Head,” “She” and the popular “The Dead Emcee Scrolls: The Lost Teachings of Hip-Hop”.