The Last Poets are several groups of poets and musicians who arose from the late 1960s African-American civil rights movement's black nationalism. The name was inspired by revolutionary South African poet Keorapetse Kgositsile who believed he was in the last era of poetry before guns took over. The original users of that name were the trio of Abiodun Oyewole, Gylan Kain, and David Nelson (whose name also appears as Dahveed Nelson and Dahveed Ben Israel).
The versions of the group led by Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin and Umar Bin Hassan had the largest impact on popular culture. The Last Poets were one of the earliest influences on hip-hop music. Critic Jason Ankeny wrote: "With their politically charged raps, taut rhythms, and dedication to raising African-American consciousness, the Last Poets almost single-handedly laid the groundwork for the emergence of hip-hop." The British music magazine NME stated, "Serious spokesmen like Gil Scott-Heron, The Last Poets, and later Gary Byrd, paved the way for the many socially committed Black [emcees] a decade later."
History
Origins and 1970s
Jalal Mansur Nuriddin a.k.a. Alafia Pudim, Umar Bin Hassan, and Abiodun Oyewole, along with poet Sulaiman El-Hadi and percussionist Nilaja Obabi (Raymond "Mac" Hurrey), are generally considered the best-known members of the various lineups. Jalal, Abiodun, Umar, and Nilaja appeared on the group's 1970 self-titled debut LP and follow-up This Is Madness featured all but Abiodun, due to his incarceration due to his political activism. On the third album Chastisment a third poet, Sulaiman El-Hadi, was added, then Nilija left and the African rhythms began to be replaced by jazzier backgrounds. The Jalal-Sulaiman version of the group made six albums together but recorded only sporadically without much promotion after 1977.
The Original Last Poets were formed on 19 May 1968, the birthday of Malcolm X, at Mount Morris Park (now known as Marcus Garvey Park) in East Harlem, New York City. The original group consisted of Gylan Kain, David Nelson and Abiodun Oyewole. The group coalesced via a 1969 Harlem writers' workshop known as East Wind. On 24 October that year, the group performed on pioneering New York television program Soul!. The Last Poets contributed "Wake Up, Niggers" to the soundtrack of Performance, a 1970 film featuring Mick Jagger.
When Nelson left, he was replaced by Felipe Luciano, who would later leave to establish the Young Lords. When Kain and Nelson began to pursue other interests (theater and ministry respectively), Abiodun Oyewole "recruited" Alafia Pudim (later known as Jalaluddin Mansur) and Umar bin Hassan. Following the success of the newly refigured Last Poets first album, founding members Kain and Nelson got together with Luciano and recorded their only album Right On in 1970, the soundtrack to a documentary movie of the same name that finally saw release in 1971. Luciano, Kain, Abiodune Oyewole and Nelson recorded separately as The Original Last Poets, gaining some renown as the soundtrack artists (without Oyewole) of the 1971 film Right On! Following a legal battle between the two groups concerning ownership of the band's name, The Right On album was released under the group name The Original Last Poets to simultaneously establish the founding members' primacy and distance themselves from the other group of the same name.
In 1972, they appeared on Black Forum Records album Black Spirits - Festival Of New Black Poets In America with "And See Her Image In The River" and "Song of Ditla, part II", recorded live at the Apollo Theatre, Harlem, New York. A book of the same name was published by Random House (1972 - ).
Having reached US Top 10 chart success with its debut album, the Last Poets went on to release the follow-up, This Is Madness, without then-incarcerated Abiodun Oyewole. The album featured more politically charged poetry that resulted in the group being listed under the counter-intelligence program COINTELPRO during the Richard Nixon administration. Hassan left the group following This Is Madness to be replaced by Sulaiman El-Hadi in time for Chastisment (1972). The album introduced a sound the group called "jazzoetry", leaving behind the spare percussion of the previous albums in favor of a blending of jazz and funk instrumentation with poetry. The music further developed into free-jazz–poetry with Hassan's brief return on Blue Thumb album At Last (1973), as yet the only Last Poets release still unavailable on CD.
The remainder of the 1970s saw a decline in the group's popularity in America, although they became quite popular in Europe.