Photo: Studio Rockers
The Last Poets took their name from the hypothesis that one day all poetry would be replaced by pistols. In the face of the inevitable, the American collective cranked up the volume even more. Today in 2018, half a century after it was founded, it still isn’t holding back. Four of the Last Poets have passed away in that time, amongst them co-founder Jalal Mansur Nurddin, who in early June of this year lost a long struggle with cancer. The vision behind the Last Poets, however, is as undying as poetry itself, which made it through the past 50 years fully intact. At Pop-Kultur, the Poets Abiodun Oyewole and Umar Bin Hassan as well as conga player Baba Donn Babatunde discuss with music journalist Naima Limdighri how literature, music, and art can still serve as means of analysis, critique, and change. And of course also why these means are more crucial today than they have been for a long time.