The Last of Them

(spotlight hits center stage. A figure approaches, casual, confident. He grabs the mic, James Brown’s defiant anthem “Say It Loud- I’m Black and I’m Proud” fades into the background.) The crowd goes silent, the stage a vacant square, pulls up a bar stool, sits, lights go dim, he breathes in the electric air.) Dig The Last Poets, black fists rise in the night/ “When The Revolution Comes,” burning ever so bright/TLP born on Malcolm’s day, a fire lit in ‘68/tossing a blizzard of truth, sealing freedom's fate/rhythm and rage, a storm of spoken word/ black consciousness blooming, a message maybe finally heard/grandfathers of hip-hop?/Man, the last poets got your political consciousness fired up/ all the street takin’ B S set aside/TLP got people into activism, and defiance to white society who used racism as a political tool to keep people of color down/ African conga beat to their politically charged and highly confrontational lyrics about racial injustice/ then Gil Scott-Heron, a jazz-soul decree "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," for all the world to see/truth fused with jazz music, a kaleidoscope's gleam Illuminating in his poetry spoken word delivery on racism, poverty, inequality, and corruption’s bitter sting, Gil’s life, a lightning flash, his street wise message on prejudice and discrimination got’s to be real/ his rich vocabulary of word phrases with a jazz group backing/ blew the doors of off FM radio airplay/ 125th and Lenox, small talk, big truth laid bare, ohhh yeah Gil’s sick flow in his poet spoken word groove/ his voice, a conscience, cutting through the polluted air/ Kanye West, Nas, Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, and the Wu-Tang Clan/ would immerse themselves in the poetry spoken word that the Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron had in the black experience against the political hypocrisy machine/ the rappers sampling the fire/ fanning the flames in America's contradiction and deception against Black’s and people of color/ Subway rumble, Bronx-bound, thoughts collide and burn deep in my mind/In this solar system of Hip-Hop, lessons we must learn/where would the MCs be, without the Last Poets’ righteous in your face call/ or without Gil Scott Heron frying amps with his spoken word/ Without them… would we be standing tall at all?/ (The MC pauses, mic in hand, the question hanging heavy in the air. JB takes us out. Man, what a jam/ “Say It Loud I’m Black and Proud”