The Last Poets

¤ Novelist/essayist Darius James, in his book «That’s Blaxploitation!» (St. Martin’s Griffin, 1995) recalled the impact of the Poets at their birth.

«In 1970 the Last Poets released their first album and dropped a bomb on black Amerikkka’s turntables. Muthafuckas ran f’cover.

Nobody was ready. Had em scared o’ revolution. Scared o’ the whyte man’s god complex. Scared o’ subways. Scared o’ each other. Scared o’ themselves. And scared o’ that totem of onanistic worship — the eagle-clawed Amerikkkan greenback! The rhetoric made you mad. The drums made you pop your fingers. And the poetry made you sail on the cushions of a fine hashish high. Most importantly, they made you think and kept you «correct» on a revolutionary level.

We all connected. ‘Cause it was a Black communal thing. Like the good vibes and paper plate of red-peppered potato salad at a neighborhood barbecue. The words and the rhythms were relevant. We joined together around the peace pipe and the drum. And when it came to the rhythms of the drums, the drums said, «Check your tired-ass ideology at the door.»

⇔The Last Poets made four albums. Oyewole, at times with Hassan, at time without, made a number of others. On the albums, there are many special guests. Bill Laswell has appeared with the group during much of the 90s. They participated in the 1994 Lollapalooza tour; performed in John Singleton’s «Poetic Justice» film and Holy Terror has Senegalese drummer Aiyb Dieng and his longtime collaborator, former Coltrane protege Pharoah Sanders to add some fireworks on sax. Hassan has the CD Be Bop or Be Dead. Anyway, a mid 90s performance of Oyewole and Hassan can be heard on the Stolen Moments: Red Hot and Blue compilation, which also ran on PBS as a video. On the fourth album since 1993, Time Has Come, Chuck D, co-founder of Public Enemy appears.

⇓   ‘Oh my people’  ⇐

– Well, thanks for coming by the studio, Gylan… er … Could you tell us a little bit about the origins of The Last Poets?

– Well, we started on a corner, an we finished down the square.

– And what was it that you were up to do?

– We […?] bring some guitar.

– And what kind of resistance did you run into?

– […?] is superstition.

– A reaction of the record companies? What did you think about that?

– […?] artists to the hole, stayed in the corner and oriented the trick.

– Radio? Critics? Newspapers?

– […?] radio, tvs spreading aloud across the seven seas.

– Did you have any kind of problems from the government or the government agencies?

– Well the government is the governing man, they govern you man.

♠  True Blues  ↓

True Blues ain’t no new news ‘bout who’s been abused
for the blues is as old as my stolen soul, as the true blues
I sang the blues when the missionaries came
passing out Bibles in Jesus’ name.
I sang the blue in the hull of a ship
beneath the sting of the slavemaster’s whip.
I sang the blues when the ship anchored the dock
my family being sold on a slave block.
I sang the blues being torn from my first born
and hung my head and cried
when my wife took his life
and then committed suicide.
I sang the blues on the slavemaster’s plantation
helping him build his tree nation.
I sang the blues in the cotton field
hustlin’ to make the daily yield.
I sang the blues when he forced my woman to bed.
Lord Knows I wish he was dead
I sang the blues on the run
ducking the dogs and dodging the gun.
I sang the blues hangin’ from the tree
in a desperate attempt to break free.

I sang the blue from sun up to down
cursing the master when he wasn’t around.
I sang the blues in all his wars
dying for someone unknown cause.
I sang the blues in the high tone, a low moan,
a load groan, a soft grunt, and a hard funk!
I sang the blues on land, sea and air
about who, when, why and where.
I sang the blues in church on Sunday.
slavin’ on Monday
misused on Tuesday.
abused on Wednesday.
accused on Thursday.
fried alive on Friday
and died on Saturday.
Sho’nuff singin the blues.
I sang the blues in the summer, fall, winter and spring.
I know sho’nuff the blues is my thing.
I sang the backwater blues.
Rhythm and blues.
Gospel blues.
St. Louis blues
Crosstown blues.
Chicago blues.
Mississipi Goddam blues.
The Watts blues.
Harlem blues.
Hough blues.
Gutbucket blues.
Funky junkie blues.
I sang the up north cigarette cough blues.
The down south strung out the side of my  mouth blues.
I sang the black blues.
I sang the blues blacker.
I sang the blues blackest.
I sang about my sho’nuff blue blackeness.

I sing the blues for you . . .

♠  E Pluribus Unum  ↓

Selfish desires are burning like fires
among those who hoard the gold
As the continue to keep the people asleep
and the truth from being told
Racism and greed keep the people in need
from getting what’s rightfully theirs
Cheating, stealin and double dealing
as they exploit the peoples fears

Now, Dow Jones owns the people’s homes
and all the surrounding land
Buying and selling their humble dwelling
in the name of the Master Plan

‘cause paper money is like a bee without honey
with no stinger to back him up
and those who stole the people’s gold
are definitely corrupt

Credit cards, master charge, legacies of wills
real-estate, stocks and bonds on coupon paper bills
Now the US mints on paper prings, millions every day
and use the eagle as their symbol ‘cause it’s a bird of prey

The laurels of peace and the arrows of wars
are clutched very tightly in the eagles claws
filled with greed and lust,
and on the back of the dollar bill, 
is the words IN GOD WE TRUST

But the dollar bill is their only God
and they don’t even trust each other
for a few dollars more they’d start a war
to exploit some brother’s mother
Then there’s the pyramid, that stands by itself
created by Black people’s knowledge and wealth
and over the pyramid hangs the devil’s eye
that stole from the truth and created the lie

Now ANNUIT means and endless amount stolen over the years
and COEPTIS means a new empire of vampire millionaires
And NOVUS is a Latin word meaning something new
an ORDO means a way of life chosen by a few
SECLORUM is a word that means to take from another
knowledge, wisdom and understanding stolen from the brother

Roman numerals on the base of the pyramid’s face
tell the date they began to exist
when they established this branch of hell
in seventeen-seventy-six

Now there are thirteen layers of stone of the pyramid alone
an unfinished work of art
for thirty-three and a third is as high as a mason can go
without falling apart

Thirteen stars in the original flag!
Thirteen demons from the Devil’s bag!
Thirteen berries and thirteen leaves!
Thirteen colonies of land-grabbing thieves!
Thirteen arrows in the eagle’s claws!
Sixty-seven corporations wage the Devil’s wars!
Thirteen stripes on the eagle’s shield!
And these are the symbols on the US seal!

Now on the front of the dollar bill
to the right of Washington’s head
is a small seal in the shape of a wheel
with the secret that’s been left unsaid
The symbols in the middle represent the riddle
of the scales, the ruler and the key;
the square rule is a symbol
from the craft of masonry
The scales represent Libra
the balance of the seventh sign
They also represent the Just-Us
which you and I know is blind
The key unlocks the mysteries
of the secrets of the seal
So that only the Govern-you-men
would know what they reveal

The four words apart form the last parts of 
the secrets of the seal
and tells how they fooled the people
into thinking paper money was real!

Now, THESAUR means the treasury
where they store the gold they stole
and AMER means to punish
like the slaves they bought and sold
Then SEPTENT means seven
like seventeen-seventy-six
when the thirteen devils gathered
to unleash their bag of tricks
The SIGEL means the images
they’ve created to fool the world
like the colors on Old Glory
the flag that they unfurled

Now the red is the color of the Indian man
White is the devil’s who stole the land
Blue is the eyes that hypnotised
with the tricks and traps they sprung
and even to this very same day
they all speak with forked tongue!
And so the power is in the hand of the ruling classes
playing god with the fate of all the masses
so the people don’t get any in the land of the plenty
because E PLURIBUS UNUM means One Out Of Many

♠  ‘Blessed Are Those Who Struggle’ ↓

Blessed are those who struggle
Oppression is worse than the grave
Better to die for a noble cause
than to live and die a slave . . .

Blessed are those who courted death
Who offered their lives to give
Who dared to rebel, rather than serve
to die so that we might live

Blessed are those who took up arms
and dared to face our foes
Nat Turner, Vesey, Gariel, Chinque
To mention a few names we know

Blessed are the memories of those
who were there at the Harper’s Ferry Raid
Strong were their hearts, noble their cause
and great was the price they paid

Blessed are the voices of those who stood up
and cried out, Let us be free!
Douglas and Garvey and Sojourner Truth
Dubois and Drew All

Blessed are the giants that we have loved
and lost to the bullet’s sting
like Malcolm and Medgar and the Panthers who fell
and Martin Luther King

And blessed are the bodies of those
who were hung from the limbs of the sycamore tree
Who found end to their hope at the end of a rope
‘cause they dared to attempt to be free

Up through the years we’ve continued this fight
our liberty to attain
And though we have faced insurmountable odds
yet the will to resist remains

Blessed are the spirits of those who have died
in the prisons all over this land
who committed one sin, they stood up like men
and got iced for just being a man

Blessed all you who will join with us now
in this struggle of life and death
so that freedom and peace will be more than a word
to the offspring that we have left

♠  ‘New York, New York’  ↓  [1970]

New York New York the big apple …
sixteen million feet nationals florsheims
tom mccanns stepping on each other
rejoicing over the death of one nigger toe
cold callous feet trotting up and down
synthetic avenues, streets, and gardens
gardens that grow shit
gardens where putty face beings sit
emotionlessly admiring bastard flowers
New York New York the big apple
New York is a prerequisite to America
a disguised sin
where some brother from that closed southern shit
comes to some open northern shit
for a vacation,  for an opportunity
an opportunity that knocks up sisters and knocks him in the head
for an opportunity that takes him home with
dope in his arms and clairol on the brain
New York New York the big apple

new sameness new food same shit
new car same gas without platformate
new love same neurosis
new installations same holes
new hairdos same minds
new styles same influence

New York New York the big apple

where jazz […?] are running around, shaking hands with the grass […?] people
never getting choked about that grass

where queen liberty tin shit
standing in the middle of pee green water
telling a brother he’s liberated
(«That’s the liberty of a a prostitute»)
Yes he gets liberated from the old mississippi to new mississippi

New York New York the big apple

where freak looking filthy white rodents
are running around spreading new kinds of
venereal diseases talking about we love everybody… we love everybody

watching movies marked adult only
when it should be kids only
the A train, the D train, the F train, the underground
undercurrent steel-plated frame
unworkable air vents ass aching benches and
then there’s that corny paraphernalia all over the interior
inside of all of this there’s a brother
being soaked in by that shit on the wall
suffocating from bad breath in the air
in pain because some jackass is riding on his foot

New York New York the big apple

while on the train you see young and old white
wrinkly faces peeking over crooked shoulders
under cardboard hats poking their noses at you
vampire eyes staring at you wondering who you are

New York is brogan boot shape state
of Madison Ave negro button-downs
hungry lost nigger souls screaming downtown for death
semi-black obscured blackness
plastic trees and phony grass
New York is a state of mind that doesn’t mind
fucking up a brother.

♠ ‘She Is’ ⇓ w/ Rotterdam Metropole Orkest_2019

She is the Jaliyaa
She did not leave us to die in the burning and ransacked
Villages. 
She did not leave our souls to rot in the bellies of sharks

She picked us up and out of the bile and vomit and the blood of our prayers
Streaming profusely down the sides of our faith
She landed us gently on our
New beginning while clothing our nakedness in the shadows of her smile, she
Was our death and resurrection of Jesus began
A strange and difficult existence in the crack of the whip in the rage of the overseer
In the lashes shredding and cutting into his Virgin birth
The primitive, The primitive and crudely crafted
Drums throbbing and pulsating, and contradictions dancing
And she is chanting whose children are these?
Moving and feeling through the high register and
Subtle words of New Orleans
And the Red, and the Green, and the Yellow
Bandanas flowing and strolling High in the Wind
Some called it Spanish. Some called it Creole. Some called it French
She called out Bamboulal
Congo. Calindal. Ju Jun
The Ring shout. The Circle dance. A free day
Some free time to call on our science
To call on our Mathematics. To construct our Cipher to genius
To self-image. To memories. Moving in and out of this counter clockwise motion
Swaying in Rhythm. Feet stomping the earth. Swaying in time
Feet stomping the earth
Answers back: in the voices of our choirs
Our Churches, Our Gospel is where she baptised us in the harmony
 of Field songs, work songs
And secret songs of the Mississippi Delta and the blues
Striking a familiar chord in the
Clickety clack. Clickety clack. Clickety clack of the train wheels moving
Us up North to Memphis and the honky tonks
To Kansas and the boogie woogie
To St Louis and the rag time
And to Chicago and the funky sound
Of our circular breathing that taught us how to swing
And to sing in the scat of jazz and the Razz matazz
Of be bop and the developing magic of Hip Hop
And the Blood of Biggie. And the tears of 2Pac forever resting in her sound
She is our Music. 
She is our Dance
She is our Art
She is our Freedom
She is
She is
She is