The Godfathers of Hip-Hop The Last Poets: “In times of great chaos, there is opportunity” | hip hop

FOr for the first time in 35 years, Billboard’s Hot 100 chart did not include a rap song among its top 40 hit records. Anyone who has listened to music for at least that long can list countless reasons why this is the case now: all the beats sound the same, all the artists are industrial factories, all the lyrics are barely intelligible and so on.. For the father of hip-hop, Abiodun Oyewole, it boils down to this: “We embraced ‘party and bullshit,’ bro.”

Fifty-seven years ago, on Malcolm They equipped themselves with African prints, played to the beat of the Congo drums and advocated populism in their poetry. The group has had many formations over the years, but Oyewole, Jalal Mansour Nuruddin and Omar Bin Hassan remain as prominent members. The trio is featured on the band’s self-titled debut album — which was released in 1970 and peaked at No. 29 on the Billboard 200. Their follow-up album, This Is Madness, made them ready targets for J Edgar Hoover’s Cointelpro campaign against emerging figures that the then-FBI director deemed politically subversive. Notably, Oyewole was unable to contribute to this album because he was imprisoned for attempting to rob the Ku Klux Klan headquarters, serving two and a half years of a three-year sentence. (He was trying to raise bail for activists arrested on charges of responding to the Klan.)

Although it was called “jazz poetry” at the time, the tight rhythms of the last poets, their rebellious message, and the prevailing focus on black consciousness would lay the foundation (along with fellow beatniks Gary Byrd and Gil Scott-Heron) for hip-hop. Everyone from Melle Mel to KRS One to Common have paid tribute to the latest poets in their work. Oyewole’s “party and bullshit” line, which came from the song When Revolution Comes on Last Poets’ debut album, would become the title and hook of Notorious B.I.G.’s debut single. Black comedians pay tribute to the latest poets as well through their spoken word parodies.

Late last year, The Last Poets released their 11th studio album, Africanism, without Noureddine (who died of cancer in 2018), which takes some of the group’s most resonant ballads and puts them in the Afrobeat style of the late, great Tony Allen — a pioneer of the genre who rose to prominence managing the band Fela Kuti. “I was struck by the fact that Omar and I said things that were so relevant to today,” Oyewole says. “It is strange that these problems continue to exist.”

At 77 years old, Oyewole remains as in tune with big issues as ever. As Ben Hassan, also 77, watched (his speech was somewhat limited after suffering a stroke the past few years), Oyewole let his opinions fly over the course of our hour-long interview.

Of Zahran Mamdani, the former presidential candidate turned democratic socialist who won a landslide victory in the New York City mayoral election, Oyewole says: “This is all by divine command.”

Regarding the rise of political violence in Nigeria, a thorny issue that Nicki Minaj clumsily waded into during her recent surprise appearance at the United Nations, Oyewole says: “We need to acknowledge that we are the same people, Africa.” and Diaspora, and make this union tighter.”

On the downfall of Kanye West, who appears with Oyole on joint song The Corner: “Kanye got addicted to whores’ drink. He got stuck, and he got stuck. I don’t know if you’ve seen Sinners, but Kanye West got bitten.”

After the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968, Oyewole said, “I wanted to be a serial killer.” Indeed, some of those bitter feelings resurface when Oyewole turns to the subject of Charlie Kirk’s death and right-wing efforts to recast Kirk as a civil rights martyr. “It’s embarrassing for all flags to be flown at half-staff in honor of a racist, for someone who insulted every black woman when he said that Maxine Waters, Michelle Obama, and Ketanji Brown Jackson aren’t smart,” he says. “And it’s embarrassing for black people to say, ‘Well, I feel sorry for him.’ There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

Oyewole credits David Nelson, co-founder of Last Poets, with challenging him to express that anger in clips instead. Earlier this month, while performing on a Soul Train ride with a lineup that also included the Isley Brothers, Oyewole told guitarist Ernie Isley that their hit song It’s Your Thing inspired the first poem he ever wrote, What’s Your Thing, Brother? — a greeting Oyewole heard often in the 1960s among activist-minded black New Yorkers trying to stir up each other’s political leanings. It’s better to gain something before losing everything, The poem goes.

The Last Poets’ grounding in black pride and political purpose has become a legacy that has been carried forward in hip-hop a movement – That crucial final word was as much about rallying listeners to the dance floor as it was about joining them in common cause against political oppression. It’s a mixture of ideals that began in earnest with Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five’s The Message, which defines a 1980s Bronx crime story and defaults to synth beats and beats. Over the decades, rap practitioners have faithfully upheld the Black American oral tradition of fighting authority and imparting knowledge about oneself while also delivering plenty of hits on the dance floor. Even Biggie followed Party & Bullshit on his debut album with Things Done Changed, a reflection on the harsh realities of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn community.

But Oyewole doesn’t hear the same range of awareness or sense of urgency in hip-hop that the music industry is pushing today. “Our music has always been a reflection of our lives, but we are dying spiritually,” he says. To underscore his point, he points to an early poem by Ben Hassan that was revived for Africanism called “The Negroes Are Afraid of Revolution” — a flash of confession that impressed his bandmate. “I was a shoeshine boy, going to bars and everything, listening to people talk about their identity, from gang members to masters of the world,” Ben Hassan says. “I had to learn the language.”

The poem was meant to be a criticism of the reuse of the N-word in a term of endearment — but this message backfired as hip-hop effectively sold its soul to secure its leading position in popular culture. “They even changed the titular character from a cat to a dog,” Oyewole says. “Back when I was growing up, it was like, ‘Man, that cat can play the piano,’ or ‘That’s a cool cat.’ But now it’s like, ‘Hey dog, that’s mine.’” Doug …’

“No, I am no “Your dog.”

Oyewole further argues that hip-hop’s outsized role in making disparaging language about black people more palatable has made it easier for Donald Trump (whom he calls the “Taco Man”) and his white supremacist followers in government to deny black supremacy in their policy-driven attacks against critical race theory and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion). However, Oyewole is confident and remains optimistic that these efforts will also backfire, and that the mission of the last poets to return power to the people will ultimately prevail.

“In times of great chaos, there is opportunity,” he says. “Taco Man and his efforts to ban books and erase our history? All he’s really doing, in a weird way, is promoting us. But he doesn’t realize it because he’s not smart.”