Month: February 2008

By Alex Mette

This Saturday night Antioch hosted the ‘Godfathers of Hip Hop,’ The Last Poets.  The group’s name is a reference to a poem by the South African revolutionary poet Keorapetse Kgositsile, who believed that the era of poetry was at an end, soon to be replaced by that of guns.  The group, originally Felipe Luciano, Gylan Kain, and David Nelson, was born on Malcolm X’s birthday (May 19) at Marcus Garvey Park, East Harlem, 1969.  Today The Last Poets are: Abiodun Oyewole, Umar Bin Hassan, and Don Babatunde Eaton.  Like Malcolm X himself, the Last Poets have changed their political ideologies over time, and today denounce much of modern Hip Hop music.  An article by DuEwa M. Frazier entitled, “The Last Poets: Still on a Mission,” quotes Abiodun Oyewole as saying that “Hip Hop has become a circus. The vehicle is still the same, but the artists, the drivers are silly. We know they’re doing this because niggas are trying to get paid, but see a lot of people are on the line to be niggas and they’re being paid to be sleazy and greasy.”  On Saturday, Oyewole spoke of the importance, or lack thereof, of rhyme in poetry.  While their use of rhythm and rhyme probably had a significant impact on what would become Hip Hop music, Oyewole stated that rhyme should come second to substance and that “You can’t just talk because your mouth runs.”  In terms of political philosophy, when asked in an interview done in 1997 how his ideas about revolution had changed, Abiodun Oyewole stated that “back then, I wanted to see everything burned and people hanged.  I wanted to see riots. The one thing that stopped me in my tracks was this guy speaking at one of our forums.  [He said] ‘You can’t really be a revolutionary until you know the kind of world that you want your kid to live in.’” Going on to say, “Now, my whole thing is, we have to see how we can be the greatest part of us, which is the healing part of us.  This self-empowerment mode is where I’m at. I’d rather that folks learn how to save themselves before they kill themselves. That’s what I’m trying to do.”       Continue reading Last Poets at Antioch