The Last Poets

Legendary Godfathers of hip hop and creators of influential albums - The Last Poets (1970) and This is Madness (1971) – The Last Poets fuse politically outspoken lyrics with inventive percussion in an electrifying celebration of 50 years of the power of words and music. The Last Poets are modern day griots, with withering attacks on everything from racists to government to the bourgeoisie, their spoken word albums preceded politically laced R&B projects such as Marvin Gaye's What's Going On and foreshadowed the work of hard-hitting rap groups such as Public Enemy.

Now in a rare appearance, Umar Bin Hassan, Abiodun Oyewole and Donn Babatunde - legendary Godfathers of hip hop - bring an electrifying celebration of 50 years of powerful words and music to Brighton Festival.

'The Last Poets are the prototype Rappers... the kina n****r you don never wanna meet!' They teach what America does to its Black men, what Black men do to themselves, and WHY!' Amiri Baraka

'A word hasn’t been coined to fit what we’re talking about,' The Last Poets told Rolling Stone in 1970

Read 'The Last Poets: America in poetry from black power to Black Lives Matter' in The Guardian

Listen to When the Revolution Comes
Listen to The White Man's Got A God Complex