The Last Poets

In the history of rock and popular music there are countless records that come to define entire social communities. Albums that transcend the boundaries of mere entertainment. True generational manifestos, meant to voice a people's social dissent, their human and political grievances. And yet very few works truly manage to embody the spirit of revolt itself, its most primordial instinct. The self-titled debut by the collective The Last Poets is without a doubt one of these rare examples. A work capable of charting new directions within black music itself, expanding its future musical horizons. Thirteen proclamations of love and hate, from which springs the need to shout one's own identity to the world, perhaps simply sitting around a fire lit on some street corner, one new proclamation after another. In essence, it's the impetuous outpouring of a people who have finally decided to free themselves from the preconceptions and prejudices they had been victims of for far too long. A tired, wounded people. Yet at the same time determined to fight back forcefully against the abuse and industrialized enslavement of the white "enemy".

It's 1968, and New York is a city in flames. Harlem is burning. The unforgotten Malcolm X has for several years already been a martyr and symbol of fervent African-American rebellion. The even more famous Martin Luther King is assassinated in April of that same year. The rage of the Black Panthers rages on and reaches its peak in those days. The United States is trembling, while ever more disastrous news arrives from Vietnam. For newly elected president Nixon, the situation is far from ideal. Youth protest, and not only youth protest, looms large, expressed by every means and in practically every state. The liberation movements of the vast Black community are preparing to strike a decisive final blow against the totalitarian regime of the white establishment.

In that same period, Jalal Mansur Nuriddin is a young Black paratrooper in the US Army, recently converted to Islam, who has just entered prison for voluntarily refusing his military obligations, and thus Vietnam. In his cell, it doesn't take him long to strike up a friendship with brothers Omar Ben Hassen and Abiodun Oyewole. The bond is instant and electric. What unites them is their belonging to the ongoing revolt and an unbridled passion for so-called protest poetry. The three of them do nothing but churn out verse after verse, effectively coining the "spiel" vocal technique, the forerunner of rapping as we know it today. What soon takes shape, and rightfully so, is the artistic and literary core of the "open" collective The Last Poets, originally made up of Felipe Luciano, Gylan Kain and David Nelson, later reconstituted, in smaller but no less influential form, as "The Original Last Poets".

The name is inspired by South African writer and revolutionary Keorapetse Kgositsile, who was firmly convinced he was living in the last age of poetry, with the cannons at the gates ready to take definitive control. Meanwhile, the one who firmly believed, right from the start, in the three young writers, by then ex-convicts, was acclaimed producer Alan Douglas, already well known worldwide for having produced and, at times, launched the careers of musicians of the caliber of Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Lenny Bruce and John McLaughlin.

The self-titled debut by the Last Poets lineup of Hassen/Nuriddin/Oyewole, joined by the invaluable and dazzling percussionist Nilaja Obabi, was released in 1970. The record, despite featuring musical traits that are unique and far from easy listening, achieved unexpected success, even breaking into the top ten. What partly hampered its initial takeoff was Oyewole's arrest for robbery, promptly replaced just ahead of the first tour by Nilaja himself.

From its very first moments, the album displays exceptional, out-of-the-ordinary traits. The thirteen recited poems it contains rest on a percussive bed rooted in African tribalism, above all the work of Nigerian musician Babatunde Olatunji, a pillar of Yoruba music.

The tap-tap intro of "Run, Nigger" makes things clear from the outset and opens the door to a whole new musical style. What comes to life is a genuine Black ceremony, in which invective delivered in a personal slang weds itself to the primordial rhythmic pulse of the bongo. The words drip with a desire for rebirth and conquest. The need to break free from social chains never truly shattered, combined with the urge to shine a light on one's own cultural tradition, reign unchallenged. Oyewole's lyrics call for a new flight, a new awakening: "Screwing your woman (Run, Niggers!)/ Whooping your ass (Run, Niggers!)/ Stealing your culture (Run, Niggers!)". It's from these words, from this visceral incipit, that rap effectively finds its embryonic form. In this sense, the rapped spelling found in the verses of the following "On The Subway" ("The new black man, let alone see us everyday, riding the subway, 8th ave, 7th ave, 6th ave, i-n-d, b-m-t, i-r-t, he still hasn't dug me, he stares endlessly") is quite emblematic. Likewise, "Niggers Are Scared Of Revolution", the album's most famous track, sinks its denunciation into the depths of a community shaken from within by the deadly lure of drugs, but above all by the walls raised (and never torn down) by the white man.

It's a wake-up call for future generations, urged never to lower their guard and never again give in to fear. Shortly after, the politically charged spoken-word of Gil Scott-Heron would in some ways pick up the thread and raise the stakes even further with the epic "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", a sort of natural sequel to "When The Revolution Comes" and, in effect, the most heartfelt expression of Black rage prevalent in that particular historical moment: "When the revolution comes/ Transit cops will be crushed by the trains after losing their guns/ And blood will run through the streets of Harlem/ Drowning anything without substance". Pride in one's race and in the cause of the Black Panthers is celebrated at length by Hassen in "Black Things". Obabi accompanies and stirs the spirit without ever overdoing it or crowding the scene, reviving that particular voodoo mysticism embedded in the group's rhythmic DNA ("Wake Up, Niggers").

Anger and passion abound instead in "New York, New York", a metropolis loved and hated in equal measure, a city mocked and exalted at the same time. Irreverence, disenchantment and poetry continue along the same path, before the closing "Surprises" - later picked up by acts of the calibre of Public Enemy and N.W.A. - reveals the last harrowing social wound, emerging from an ocean of rage and indignation.

With the Last Poets, social and musical revolution have never been so close. In the decades that followed, entire generations of MCs would pour their hearts out, drawing heavily - and at times unconsciously - on what was written and performed by the finest line-up of this extraordinary group of American poets and musicians.

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15/02/2015