The Last Poets
Formed in East Harlem in 1968 out of a Malcolm X memorial gathering, the Last Poets set confrontational, percussion-backed verse against American racism and complacency years before anyone called it rap — their self-titled 1970 debut, cut for under $500, went gold on word of mouth alone. The lineup shifted across founding members Abiodun Oyewole, Gylan Kain and David Nelson, later joined by Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, but the formula stayed constant: hand drums, call-and-response chanting, and no interest in softening the message. Widely credited as hip-hop's direct ancestors, they've spent over five decades watching the genre they helped invent circle back to cite them as its origin point.
we haven’t charted The Last Poets yet
this stretch of the river isn’t mapped. we trace the watershed one artist at a time — and we’re always heading further upstream.