The Legend - The Best of the Last Poets

The first jam-packed disc in this low-budget double set is full of so much crazy rhythm, jive poetry, brilliant lines, revolutionary rhetoric, hate, love, venom, vigor, incantatory genius, and over-the-edge performances that you'll hardly be able to listen to it in one sitting. While perhaps a bit too in love with the words "fuck" and "nigger" for many listeners, this four-piece infused the dead horse of beat poetry with a staggeringly vibrant, militant, inner-city, often funny, totally African American flavor. It captures them in the early 1970s as they threw down heavy, musical words atop flowing, complex rhythms. The second disc features later "comeback" selections, interesting attempts at mixing their inflammatory style with rap beats that rarely work; the Last Poets don't need drum machines to reign supreme and have already been sampled plenty in hip-hop and electronic music. Ultimately, this is fierce, hefty-duty, musical spoken word that's among the most important of rap progenitors. --Mike McGonigal

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