21 July 2015

I had the pleasure of hanging out with The Last Poets yesterday, who are visiting these shores to shoot a documentary about them, made by my companéros Vagabond Beaumont and Tonxti Vasquez, as well tour the country performing.

Here they are hanging out on the roof of a pub in Deptford where the shoot took place. And a very cool time was had by all. They are performing at the Pop in Brixton on Thursday. I was hoping to go and celebrate my 70th birthday there but I can’t get a ticket!

Left to Right: Abiodun Oyewole, Don “Babatunde” Eaton on congas, Umar Bin Hassan

For those of you who aren’t aware of  The Last Poets, they rose to prominence in the latter half of the 1960s as not only radical poets, inspired by Malcolm X and South African poet Keorapetse Kgositsile, their work had a profound impact even here in the UK on poets like Linton Kwesi Johnson and in the US, Hip-Hop and Gil Scott Heron.

Here’s their 1970 album, ‘The Last Poets’ in its entirety courtesy of Youtube.