"The Last Poets" by The Last Poets - album review
Martin Luther King and Martin X were dead, black anger was rising. The time was right for The Last Poets who were at the ready with this WAKE UP call. It sold 800,000 copies and hit the Billboard Top 10. The Last Poets were "born in bebop… raised in doowop" and, as we can easily hear with the benefit of hindsight, they "put the hip in hip-hop". The creative spirits on this ground-breaking debut LP were: Jalal Mansur Nuriddin (26, poet); Omar Ben Hassen (26, poet) and Abiodun Oyewole (22, poet). The three had recently met in prison where they had honed their rap skills: "it was called your spiel… expounding your virtues" as group-leader Jalal put it. Circumstances were favourable in the lead up to the production of the LP. The three had hooked up with Harlem's East Wind Poetry workshop where they met others working the same tip under the collective term "The Last Poets", so named after a quote from South African poet Keorapetse Kgositsile which they paraphrase in "When the revolution comes" by rapping: "Guns and rifles will be taking the place of poems and essays" The big-break for the Last Poets occurred when producer Alan Douglas caught them on a local TV show. A born musical-adventurer, he was excited enough to back the LP project and DOUGLAS 3 followed other far out cats such as Dr. Timothy Leary (DOUGLAS 1) and Lenny Bruce (DOUGLAS 2). Completing the line-up was Nilaja Obadi, whose percussive brilliance was an essential component; these were tribal beats connecting African roots and giving brothers a head-nodding base to work from. In "The Rough Guide to Rock" Peter Buckley said it best of this work, when he noted: "White duplicity and black complacency were lambasted."
Featuring poets Abiodun Oyewole, Alafia Pudim (a.k.a. Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin), & Umar Bin Hassan.
A1 [01:14] The Last Poets - Run, Nigger (Abiodun Oyewole) Hip Hop / Rap
A2 [01:33] The Last Poets - On The Subway (Alafía Pudím) Hip Hop / Rap
A3 [05:16] The Last Poets - Niggers Are Scared Of Revolution (Omar Ben Hassen) Hip Hop / Rap
A4 [01:31] The Last Poets - Black Thighs (Omar Ben Hassen) Hip Hop / Rap
A5 [02:45] The Last Poets - Gashman (Abiodun Oyewole) Hip Hop / Rap
A6 [02:49] The Last Poets - Wake Up, Niggers (Alafía Pudím) Hip Hop / Rap
B1 [03:36] The Last Poets - New York, New York (Abiodun Oyewole) Hip Hop / Rap
B2 [02:51] The Last Poets - Jones Comin' Down (Alafía Pudím) Hip Hop / Rap
B3 [02:31] The Last Poets - Just Because (Abiodun Oyewole) Hip Hop / Rap
B4 [01:34] The Last Poets - Black Wish (Omar Ben Hassen) Hip Hop / Rap
B5 [01:47] The Last Poets - When The Revolution Comes (Omar Ben Hassen) Hip Hop / Rap
B6 [01:51] The Last Poets - Two Little Boys (Abiodun Oyewole) Hip Hop / Rap
B7 [02:09] The Last Poets - Surprises (Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin, Alafía Pudim) Hip Hop / Rap