Biography

One can debate endlessly about who invented rap music, but if rap's essence is beats and rhymes, then it's difficult to get around the towering influence New York City-based jazz/poetry group the Last Poets had on the creation of the form. The group's self-titled 1970 debut was a musical and political call to arms built on polyrhythmic drum beats and fierce verse poetry about black power, Afrocentricity, and the realities of street life. In 1973, founding member and group leader Jalal Mansur Nuriddin released the epic concept album HUSTLERS CONVENTION. Often cited as the first gangsta rap album, it presaged hip-hop's most lucrative subgenre by nearly two decades.

Top Tracks

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• Black Is

• E Pluribus Unum

• Get Movin'

• Jones Comin' Down

• New York, New York

• Niggers Are Scared Of Revolution

• Sentenced To The Chair

• The Bones Fly From Spoon's Han D

• This Is Madness

• This Is Madness Chant

• Two Little Boys

• When The Revolution Comes

• White Man's Got A God Complex

Discography

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• Time Has Come

  Mouth Almighty Records / Mercury

  1997

• Retro Fit

  Celluloid

  1992

• Oh My People

  Charly Records

  1984

• Delights of the Garden

  Charly Records

  1977

• Jazzoetry

  Get Back Records

  1976

• At Last

  Blue Thumb Records

  1976

• Chastisement

  Charly Records

  1972

• The Last Poets

  Sunspots

  1970

• The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

  197?