Rick Rubin, MTV's "most important white boy in hip-hop," has produced some of the most influential and creative albums of the past two decades, from artists such as The Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Slayer, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down, Nine Inch Nails, Audio Slave, Jay-Z, Saul Williams—and the list just keeps on going. But what kind of producer works as easily with Johnny Cash as with Nine Inch Nails? And what kind of producer has Johnny covering a NIN song? Quite simply, a producer who follows the trail of excellence, no matter how many boundaries are broken in the process. "Every step of the way I've been told I can't do what I do, because people tend to have their niche, and that's it." Rick's niche just seems to be great music, and what he does is create a space for artists of any genre to be as great as they can possibly be.

"You could listen to this song with maybe twenty lines in it, and if you could be reached in the same way in a two-hour movie, it would be a great feat for the movie. Yet a three-minute song can have that power—it's really amazing...."

Art as contemplation. Poetry as incantation. Relationship as enlightenment. Such are the words and experiences of Saul Williams. Though digitized, synthesized, and edited into bit-sized segments, the man and the trans-man-transmission are as clear as ever. Here you will find a stream of consciousness shared between two conscious brothers exchanging soul-symbols over copper wires, molding verbal form to the demands of that which cannot be expressed, and yet must be. As Saul says in "Untimely Meditations" (Amethyst Rock Star, 2001): "Mere language is profanity, I’d rather hum, or have my soul tattooed to my tongue, and let the scriptures be sung in gibberish, as words be simple fish in my soul aquarium."

“Acting is primarily a study of Being. In the moment of art, you lose yourself and find yourself at the same time. You have to let it go, to live fully in the moment, to fully experience all possibilities within that moment, to lose it all, to let it all go. It is a true contemplation of Being through art.... I love the idea, the idea of integral, a beautiful idea whose time has come....”

Ed Kowalczyk - That Moment of One-ness is what Performing is All About (click here to listen)

Ed Kowalczyk is the lead singer/songwriter of the rock group Live, who have just released their sixth studio album, Birds of Pray, whose first single, "Heaven," has already topped the Liquid Audio Download charts for digital singles. In this intimate discussion of the heart of a rock and roll that actually has heart, Eddie talks about how the very essence of an authentic performance is awakening and sharing with the audience a glimpse into that one-ness that is everybody's natural condition. If you don't think rock and roll can do this, you haven't heard Live....

"During a performance, it's really about getting to that point where everybody is conjoined as quickly as possible...."

Serj Tankian - Politics, Justice, and Rock and Roll (click here to listen)

Serj Tankian, lead singer of System of a Down, voted the #1 band of 2002 by leading critics, is one of the most original and passionate of today’s artists, and one of Integral Institute’s favorite contributors to our ongoing conversation on the avant garde. With a surging and cacophonic presentation, System of a Down simply can’t be pigeonholed—a type of genre-busting transcendental howl. Rolling Stone magazine called System’s sophomore effort, Toxicity, “a bouquet of smart rock and ardent social comment.” In this surprisingly touching dialogue, Serj speaks about some of the most important aspects of his life that contribute to the “post-everything” bouquet of sound that is System of a Down.

"The whole genocide issue to me is not even political, it's personal, because I don’t have a family tree. I can only trace my family back to my grandfather and his memories...."

As many people know, Billy Corgan and Smashing Pumpkins burst on the scene with their first album, Gish, in 1991, which shot to the top of the charts, which is where the Pumpkins remained for a decade, all the harder in that critics considered them “sophisticated,” “complex,” “with great depth,” words usually reserved for artistic success and commercial failure. Billy and the Pumpkins achieved both, as did his next group, Zwan. In this far-reaching, sharp, and insightful dialogue, Billy Corgan and Ken discuss the nature and meaning of the avant garde, using Billy’s own career as a touchstone for the discussion.

“If the commercial system demands that you constantly degrade your integrity in order to achieve success, then you’re basically buying into transitory fans who like you because you’re doing something stupid today….”