The Last Poets - Understand What Black Is

The Guardian 60

(Studio Rockers)

Born in the wake of the civil rights movement, Harlem’s Last Poets performed politically charged spoken word to musical backings. Cited alongside Gil Scott Heron as hip-hop progenitors, there’s some ambivalence to the tag. Not merely a rap history footnote, their work stands alone as “jazzoetry”.

Compelled by a new civil rights struggle, the Last Poets’ first album in over 20 years marks 50 years since their founding. It finds two of the outfit’s members – Abiodun Oyewole and Umar Bin Hassan – musing long and deep to reggae backings, courtesy of Brit producers Nostalgia 77 and Prince Fatty and Poets percussionist Baba Donn Babatunde. This sonic kismet is so obvious, it’s a marvel the Poets never took to reggae previously.