JALAL MANSUR NURIDDIN
Last Poets co-founder and progenitor of rap (1944 –2018)
Jalal Mansur Nuriddin’s 1973 album Hustlers Convention – recorded under the alias lightnin’ Rod – is considered a keystone of rap and hiphop, its assimilation of funk, jazz and street poetry hugely influential on subsequent generations of artists, from Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel to Chuck D and Wu-Tang Clan. It follows the story of two brothers (Sport and Spoon) and their attempts to survive in inner-city New York, serving as a wider commentary on the black experience in ’70s america.
Hampered by legal issues and bad management, the album stiffed on release, its reputation growing over time thanks to word of mouth and the patronage of famous admirers. Nuriddin never received the wider acclaim he deserved as a result, although Mike Todd’s Hustlers Convention documentary (executive produced by Chuck D in 2015) finally brought a degree of recognition. In the film, Nuriddin explained that he conceived the piece as a warning, rather than any glorification of crime: “I wrote the album so people would sit up, take notice and not become one of the hustlers, card cheats, prostitutes, pimps and hijackers I rapped about.”
Nurridin grew up in a housing project in Brooklyn, where he listened to doo-wop and started to express himself via poetry and toasting. Going by the name of alafia Pudim, he founded black radicals The last Poets in the late ’60s with abiodun Oyewole and Umar Bin Hassan. Their eponymous 1970 debut sought to promote black self-determination, highlighted by such uncompromising raps as “Wake Up, Niggers” and “When The Revolution Comes”. Despite little or no label backing, the album made the Billboard Top 30. Nuriddin featured on various last Poets releases through to 1994.