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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. *
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The Last Poets
were formed on May 19, 1968 (Malcolm X's birthday), at Marcus Garvey Park
(formerly Mount Morris Park, at 124th Street and Fifth Avenue) in the East
Harlem neighborhood of New York City. The original members were Felipe Luciano,
Gylan Kain, and David Nelson. The group continued to evolve via a 1969 Harlem
writers' workshop known as "East Wind." Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, Umar Bin Hassan,
and Abiodun Oyewole, along with percussionist Nilaja, are generally considered
the primary and core members of the group, as they appeared in the group's 1970
self-titled debut . . ..—Luciano,
Kain, and Nelson recorded separately as "The Original Last Poets," gaining some
renown as the soundtrack artists for the 1971 film "Right On!" . . . . With jazz
or funk as a backdrop, percussions rolling and words shooting out like bursts of
machine gun fire, the group denounces the oppression of African Americans, while
painting a devastating yet humorous picture of life in the ghetto. Nearly forty
years after their separation, the members of this legendary group—the founding
fathers of today's hip hop, rap and slam—come together in Paris for a one-time
concert at the 2008 Banlieues Bleues Festival. |
The Last Poets: Made in Amerikkka is a
film that erases the boundaries between different genres. It's a live
recording, a musical documentary and an art film, all combined into one,
and yet it goes beyond any of these. It is a film event, faithful to the
spirit and the image of The Last Poets.
Umar Bin Hassan, and Abiodun
Oyewole still perform under the name "The Last Poets."—Wikipedia
The Last Poets: Made in Amerikkka /
Last Poets with Pharaoh Sanders /
Last Poets—Blessed are those who struggle
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update 28 March 2009 |
