The Last Poets Biography
Coming out of the poverty-stricken ghetto of Harlem, New York City, USA in the mid-60s, there are many who claim the Last Poets to be the first hip-hop act proper. Originally comprising David Nelson, Gylan Kain and Abiodun Oyewole, the Last Poets formed on 19 May 1969 (Malcolm X's birthday), the informal line-up grew to include Felipe Luciano, Jalal Mansur Nuriddin aka Alafia Pudim (Gene Dinwiddie), Omar Bin Hassan (aka Umar Bin Hassan - as with other personnel name alterations occurred frequently) and Sulieman El-Hadi. They took their name from a poem by South African poet Willie Kgositsile.
After splitting into two different factions, the trio of Oyewole, Nuriddin and Hassan recorded an album with percussionist Nilaja and jazz producer Alan Douglas. The Last Poets reached the US Top 30, despite featuring such powerful protest gems as "Niggas Are Scared Of Revolution" and "White Man's Got A God Complex'. Oyewole received a lengthy prison sentence shortly after the album was released. This Is Madness provoked further attention from the American establishment, and was the last early recording to feature Hassan. At the same time Nelson, Luciano and Kain, calling themselves the Original Last Poets, recorded an album (Right On!) for the Juggernaut label. El-Hadi joined Nuriddin and Nilaja for 1972's Chastisement, which moved further into fusion territory. Nuriddin recorded the following year's solo album Hustler's Convention under the alias Lightnin" Rod. At Last featured the returning Hassan, but only one further recording surfaced under the Last Poets name during the remainder of the decade. Their legacy, that of the innovative use of rap/talk over musical backing, bore obvious fruit in the new generation of hip-hop acts to surface in the early 80s. Nuriddin and El-Hadi re-formed the Last Poets in 1984. The long-players Oh! My People and Freedom Express followed as the Last Poets reaped the benefits of their legendary status. In 1993 Hassan released the solo album Be Bop Or Be Dead, featuring Bootsy Collins, Buddy Miles and others, after a period of seclusion, and drug and family problems. He also kept company with rap stars like Arrested Development and Flavor Flav, and appeared in John Singleton's Poetic Justice. Nuriddin also mentored UK acid jazzers Galliano. In the mid-90s their tangled history entered another chapter, with two rival line-ups (Nuriddin/El-Hadi and Hassan/Oyewole) recording as the Last Poets, although currently the latter teaming holds the rights to the name. While not bitter about failing to reap the financial rewards that subsequent rappers have done, Hassan remains philosophical: "As far as I'm concerned we made a market, for those young boys to have their careers . . . I understand that some brothers are still trying to find their manhood. But it ain't about drive-by shootings. That's madness. Self-destruction. Real gangsters don't go around shooting everybody".
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.
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