The Last Poets' Umar Bin Hassan 

Enthralls Hip Hop 101

By Junious Ricardo Stanton

On Thursday evening May 8th, Umar Bin Hassan a member of the legendary incendiary group The Last Poets closed out Michael Coard's Hip Hop 101 class, part of the Pan African Studies and Community Education Program a grass roots cultural and educational program operated out of Temple University in Philadelphia. Hassan had been scheduled a few weeks earlier but he had to cancel to return to New York to receive an award. Hassan returned to Philadelphia and spent several days promoting his appearance on black owned radio stations WHAT, WURD and black oriented WDAS. 

An intergenerational overflow crowd packed Anderson Hall to hear Uma Bin Hassan share the history of The Last Poets how he became involved with the Black Arts Movement and to recite samples of his poems and spoken word artistry. The Last Poets are celebrating thirty-five years and Hassan dipped into his bag from his large body of works to enthrall and mesmerize the audience with both classic and new material. Hassan started off giving a mini-history lecture about the oral story tellers and keepers of the culture in Africa and how that tradition was impacted by slavery and the adjustments Africans in America made to their oppression to allow them to keep their music as an integral part of their daily lives. 

He talked about Congo Square in New Orleans, the work songs, the shouts, the circle dance. He explained how the Europeans took the drums away and gave them Christianity but Africans took their hymns and fused them with dynamism and vitality and even used them to send messages about escaping. 

"I hope you understand that is the history of our culture, where our music comes form because it is the same, it can not be defined or categorized, it's all from the same root. There are five things that unify us in America in our music: call and response -- most of our music is call and response whether its Rap, Hip Hop or Spoken Word. The second one is our art has always been part of our community. We've never made art separate from our community. Europeans say art imitates life, for us art was life. 

"The third unifying factor in our music is that for every beat that somebody knew -- the tribe had a dance to it, every rhythm had a dance to it, we knew the dance and we knew the beat. As long as you knew the dance and the beat you were hip. The fourth as that every time you saw us making an instrument whether it was a horn or we were beating on the jawbone or beating on the drum we were trying to imitate the human voice by speaking to each other, singing to each other expressing ourselves. 

"And fifth and most important thing was the rhythm, the beat. They (white folks) have been trying to get to our rhythm and our beat forever. That's one of the basic things about Hip Hop; even if I hear some nasty words on a funny TV Show, it's the beat. Some of these kids are making beats that are really out of sight -- I've got to give them that."

By the time Hassan brought the audience from Africa all the way up to Hip Hop he had us eating out of his hand, hanging onto his every word. He even explained the phrase Hip Hop was not new. "We used to have hops or dances back in the day. We all used to go to them in the schools, churches, and dance halls. If we went to a hop that was really fun and afterwards we talked about it saying 'that was really a hip hop we had last night.'" 

Hassan shared the history of The Last Poets, how the group got its name and how he joined the group. The Last Poets was founded on May 19, 1968 in Harlem, New York. Hassan was not an original member. He heard them when they came to Ohio, after he had been introduced to Amiri Baraka, Richard Wright and James Baldwin's writings and the bourgeoning militancy, black nationalism, and revolutionary tenor of the times. He informed the audience he was the only member of the group that was voted in by the public who heard his poems, his work with the group and their legendary conga player.

After the history lesson Hassan recited a variety of his poems, old some new. The audience shouted out requests and Hassan obliged them (call and response). They clapped, recited along with him on the classic "Niggers Are Scared of Revolution," and sat in rapt attention as he did several new poems. There was a genuine exchange of mutual respect, admiration and love between the audience and Umar Bin Hassan. Hassan was given several standing ovations, a fitting tribute to close out the Hip Hop 101 Spring semester with one of the keepers of the legacy of African culture and one of the progenitors of Hip Hop.