“You can trace the birth of hip-hop to the summer of 1973 when Kool Herc DJ’d the first extended breakbeat, much to the thrill of the dancers at a South Bronx block party. You can trace its conception, however, to five years earlier – 19 May 1968, 50 years ago this weekend – when the founding members of the Last Poets stood together in Mount Morris park – now Marcus Garvey park – in Harlem and uttered their first poems in public. They commemorated what would have been the 43rd birthday of Malcolm X, who had been slain three years earlier. Not two months had passed since the assassination of Martin Luther King. ‘Growing up, I was scheduled to be a nice little coloured guy. I was liked by everybody,’ says the Last Poets’ Abiodun Oyewole. He was 18 and in college when he heard the news. ‘But when they killed Dr King, all bets were off.’ That day led to the Last Poets’ revelatory, self-titled 1970 debut of vitriolic black power poems spoken over the beat of a congo drum. Half a century later, the slaughter continues daily, in the form of assaults, school shootings and excessive police force. ‘America is a terrorist, killing the natives of the land / America is a terrorist, with a slave system in place,’ Oyewole declares on the Last Poets’ new album, Understand What Black Is, in which he and Umar Bin Hassan trade poems over reggae orchestration, horns, drums and flute. It’s their first album in 20 years, reminding a new generation of hip-hop’s roots in protest poetry. … The late Gil Scott-Heron, meanwhile, is often mistakenly believed to have been a member of the Last Poets. Rather, they were contemporaries, the connective tissue between the rap, hip-hop and spoken word genres they helped inspire, and their own direct influences: jazz and Langston Hughes and the words of their slain leaders. ‘I been to the mountaintop!’ Oyewole says, quoting King’s final speech when I visit him. ‘Ain’t nothing but a poem.’ On this Sunday, as with almost every Sunday for the last three decades, Oyewole is hosting the Open House poetry workshop in his Harlem apartment, a 20-minute walk from the spot where the Last Poets once spoke their first words. The door is cracked open for the stream of visitors who will fill the seats all afternoon and evening. …”
Guardian (Video)
W – The Last Poets (album)
allmusic (Audio)
Discogs
iTunes
YouTube: The Last Poets 57:10
Bill Davis
-
Join 424 other subscribers
Tags
- 1968 DNC
- Agent Orange
- Alan Watts
- Allen Ginsberg
- Angela Davis
- ARVN
- Berlin Wall
- Bill Graham
- Black Power
- Bob Dylan
- Books
- Burroughs
- Cambodia
- Che
- Chicago Eight
- Chicano/Puerto Rican
- CIA
- Civil Rights Mov.
- Computing
- CORE
- Counterculture
- Cronkite
- Cuban Revolution
- Czech
- Dick Gregory
- Documentary
- Draft board
- Ed Sanders
- Eldridge Cleaver
- Environmental
- Feminist
- Freedom Summer
- Free Speech Mov.
- Gonzo journalism
- Grateful Dead
- Haight-Ashbury
- Hanoi
- Happenings
- Harlem
- Henry Kissinger
- Hippie
- Ho Chi Minh
- Ho Chi Minh Trail
- Huey P. Newton
- Hunter S. Thompson
- Italy
- Jack Kerouac
- James Baldwin
- Jazz
- Jerry Rubin
- Jesse Jackson
- John Kennedy
- Ken Kesey
- LA Boom
- Laos
- LSD
- Lyn. Johnson
- Malcolm X
- Marijuana
- Merry Pranksters
- Mexico
- Michael Herr
- MLKJr.
- Movie
- Music
- My Lai
- Napalm
- Newspaper
- Nixon
- Noam Chomsky
- No Nukes
- NVA
- Pacifist
- Paris
- Peace talks
- Philip Berrigan
- Phil Ochs
- Poetry
- Poverty
- Project Mercury
- R. McNamara
- Race Riots
- Religion
- Rob. Kennedy
- Rolling Stones
- Saigon
- SCLC
- SDS
- SNCC
- Sports
- Street theater
- Tet 1968
- The Beatles
- The Fugs
- Timothy Leary
- Tom Hayden
- TV
- Viet Cong
- Vietnam War
- Weather Underground
-
Recent Posts
- Taking Venice – Amei Wallach
- Why Michael Cimino didn’t consider ‘The Deer Hunter’ to be a Vietnam War movie
- J. G. Ballard
- “Crowded Air”: Previous Modernisms in some 1964 New York Little Magazines – Stephanie Anderson
- Le Cercle Rouge – Jean-Pierre Melville (1970)
- The Drifters’ Golden Hits (1968)
- Simone de Beauvoir Understood the Link Between Gender and Class Oppression
- The Castafiore Emerald – The Adventures of Tintin (1963)
- National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
- Review: ‘Catching Fire: The Anita Pallenberg Story’ Zeroes in on a Fashionable Force of Nature
Categories
- 1968 DNC
- Agent Orange
- Alan Watts
- Allen Ginsberg
- Angela Davis
- ARVN
- Beach Boys
- Berlin Wall
- Bill Ayers
- Bill Graham
- Bill Moyers
- Black Power
- Bob Dylan
- Bobby Seale
- Books
- Burroughs
- Cambodia
- Che
- Chicago Eight
- Chicano/Puerto Rican
- CIA
- Civil Rights Mov.
- Computing
- CORE
- Counterculture
- Cronkite
- Cuban Revolution
- Czech
- Dick Gregory
- Documentary
- Draft board
- Ed Sanders
- Eldridge Cleaver
- Environmental
- Feminist
- Free Speech Mov.
- Freedom Summer
- Gonzo journalism
- Grateful Dead
- Haight-Ashbury
- Hanoi
- Happenings
- Harlem
- Henry Kissinger
- Hippie
- Ho Chi Minh
- Ho Chi Minh Trail
- Huey P. Newton
- Hunter S. Thompson
- Italy
- Jack Kerouac
- James Baldwin
- Jazz
- Jerry Rubin
- Jesse Jackson
- John & Yoko
- John Kennedy
- Ken Kesey
- LA Boom
- Laos
- LSD
- Lyn. Johnson
- Malcolm X
- Mao
- Marijuana
- Merry Pranksters
- Mexico
- Michael Herr
- MLKJr.
- Movie
- Music
- My Lai
- Napalm
- Newspaper
- Nixon
- No Nukes
- Noam Chomsky
- NVA
- Pacifist
- Paris
- Paris Peace Accords
- Paul Goodman
- Peace talks
- Phil Ochs
- Philip Berrigan
- Poetry
- Poverty
- Project Mercury
- R. McNamara
- Race Riots
- Religion
- Richard Brautigan
- Rob. Kennedy
- Rolling Stones
- Saigon
- SCLC
- SDS
- SNCC
- Sports
- Street theater
- Tet 1968
- The Beatles
- The Fugs
- Timothy Leary
- Tom Hayden
- TV
- Uncategorized
- United Nations
- Ursula K. Le Guin
- Viet Cong
- Vietnam War
- Watergate scandal
- Weather Underground
Archives
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- Follow 1960s: Days of Rage on WordPress.com
Categories
Allen Ginsberg Black Power Bob Dylan Books Burroughs Chicano/Puerto Rican CIA Civil Rights Mov. Counterculture Cuban Revolution Documentary Draft board Feminist Happenings Hippie Jazz John Kennedy LSD Lyn. Johnson Marijuana MLKJr. Movie Music Newspaper Nixon Pacifist Paris Poetry R. McNamara Religion Rob. Kennedy SDS Street theater Viet Cong Vietnam WarGravatar