Poets: Abiodun Oyewole, Umar Bin Hassan and Alafia Pudim
Percussionist: Nilaja
(Photo Doug Harris)

"The Last Poets are the seminal street poets,
whose respect has only grown as their genre's time had come."
- Don Williams Music Group, Inc.

Abiodun Oyewole (2008)

"On May 16, 1969 -- Malcolm X's birthday -- they officially formed The Last Poets, adopting the name from the work of South African Little Willie Copaseely, who declared the era to be the last age of poets before the complete takeover of guns. After a performance on a local televison program, the group was signed by jazz producer Alan Douglas, who helmed their eye-opening eponymous debut LP in 1970. A collection condemning both white oppression ("White Man's Got a God Complex") and black stasis ("Niggas Are Scared of Revolution"), The Last Poets reached the U.S. Top 10 album charts, but before the group could mount a tour, Oyewole was sentenced to 14 years in prison after being found guilty of robbery, and was replaced by percussionist Nilajah.

After the 1971 follow-up This Is Madness (which landed them on President Richard Nixon's Counter-Intelligence Programming lists), Hassan joined a southern-based religious sect; Jalal recruited former jazz drummer Suliaman El Hadi for 1972's Chastisement, which incorporated jazz-funk structures to create a sound the group dubbed "jazzoetry." Following the 1973 Jalal solo concept album Hustler's Convention (recorded under the alias Lightnin' Rod), the Last Poets issued 1974's At Last, a foray into free-form jazz; after its release, Nilajah exited..."

Above excerpted from material written by Jason Ankeny ' All-Music Guide 1999.
 

Read an Article: The Last Poets: Still On a Mission by DuEwa M. Frazier  

 

Last Poets on a Mission: Selected Poetry & a History of the Last Poets
Click to order via Amazon

Author:  Abiodun Oyewole, Umar Bin Hassan, with Kim Green

Foreword by Amiri Baraka

Publisher:  Henry Holt & Co., Inc.
Date Published:  September 1996
Format:  Trade Paper

The Last Poets are enjoying a resurgence of popularity in the 1990s. They participated in the 1994 Lollapalooza tour; performed in John Singleton's "Poetic Justice", and recently released a new CD called Holy Terror. But who exactly are these renowned forefathers of rap music? And how have they inspired a new generation of performance poets to be more profound than profane? ON A MISSION: Selected Poems and A History of The Last Poets, an affecting combination of memoir and poetry, tells us for the first time.

MY PEOPLE My people are Black, beige, yellow Brown and beautiful A garden of life with a love as sweet as scuppernong wine growing in muddy waters making brown babies with pink feet and quick minds My people warm sometimes hot always cool always together My people let's be together understand that we've lived together understand that we've died together understand My brother that I've smelled your piss in my hallway and it smell just like mine understand that I love your woman my sister and her rare beauty is reason enough for a revolution yes sister my honest sister I have had ugly moments with you but you are the only beauty I've ever known Yes sister my honest sister you are the joy in my smile you are the reality of my dreams you are the only sister I have and I need you I need you to feed the children of our race I need you to feed the lovers of our race I need you to be the summer of my winters I need you because you are the natural life in the living at night there is a moon to make the Blackness be felt I am that Blackness filling up the world with My soul and the world knows me You are that moon my moon Goddess shining down light on my Black face that fills the universe My moon I am your sun and I shall take this peace of light and build a world for you my sister Sometimes the waters are rough and the hungry tide swallows the shore washing away all memories of children's footsteps playing in the sand where is the world I promised my son? must he push back the tide and build the world that I have rapped about Am I so godly until I forget what a man is? Am I so right until there is no room for patience My brother Oh in brother father of a son father of a warrior My brother the sun My brother the warrior Be the beginning and the end for my sister Be the revolution for our world turn yourself into yourself and then onto this disordered world and arrange the laughter for joy the tears for sorrow Turn purple pants, alligator shoes leather jackets, brown boots polka dot ties, silk suits, Turn miniskirts, false eyelashes, red wigs, afro wigs, Easter bonnets, bellbottoms turn this confusion into Unity Unity so that the sun will follow our foot steps in the day so that the moon will glow in our living rooms at night so that food, clothing, and shelter will be free because we are born free to have the world as our playground My people. "My People" was then, and still is, one of my favorite poems. I feel I have covered the strength, the tenderness, the glory, the truth as well as an ideology that we as a people should work toward." - Abiodun Oyewole

In ON A MISSION, two of the group's most consistent and integral members--Abiodun Oyewole and Umar Bin Hassan--share their accounts of the group's genesis and evolution. The personal statements that comprise the first half of the book are vivid, personal, revealing, and as hopeful as they are painful. The two men describe their childhoods and accomplishments, their mistakes and regrets. They reminisce about street life, drug abuse, jail terms, family relationships, and their affiliation with groups like the Harlem Committee for Self-Defense and the Black United Front. What emerges are two very powerful portraits of growing up Black in America. - Henry Holt and Company

 

Discography

1 - Chastisment/Freedom Express
2 - The Time Has Come
3 - The Best of the Prime Time Rhyme of the Last Poets, Vol. 2
4 - The Legend: The Best of the Last Poets
5 - The Best of the Prime Time Rhyme of the Last Poets
6 - Holy Terror
7 - Scattarap/Home
8 - Retro Fit
9 - Right On!
10 - Freedom Express
11 - Oh My People
12 - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
13 - Delights in the Garden
14 - Jazzoetry
15 - Chastisement
16 - This Is Madness
17 - The Last Poets 1st Album 1970)
18 - Get Movin'
19 - Mean Machin
20 - The Real Rap
21 - The Best of the Last Poets