Even readers unfamiliar with the Last Poets’ historic significance as building blocks of the hip-hop and rap movement, will instantly find this novel a compelling read. 
The Last Poets were self-proclaimed prophets of "hope and change." The band was formed in 1968 against an incendiary backdrop of the black power movement and murders of Martin Luther King, Kennedy and Malcolm X. Today their socio-political lyrics have a renewed sense of urgency, rallying loud and clear against the fear-based politics of the Trump era. 
Christine Otten spent three months travelling across the United States interviewing members of the Last Poets, their families, friends, and musicians. She describes their impoverished childhoods, their love lives, successes and failures in this beautifully written, sensuously swinging, biopic-style novel.

The Last Poets

Literature & Fiction

Otten, Christine

United States

World Editions

Good Luck

CPNB

The Last Poets were formed in the US in the late 1960s, a period full of hope and dreaming of revolution and a time when the Black Panthers were at the height of their power. Taking their name from those who believed they were in the last era of poetry before guns would take over, these African American poets and musicians ignited the imagination of a generation - and laid the groundwork for the hip hop movement of the 1980s and 90s. Dutch author Christine Otten was inspired to write about their lives - and there began a deep friendship and an acclaimed novel. We follow Felipe Luciano, David Nelson, Abiodun Oyewole and Umar Bin Hassan - a one time street kid who left for New York to become a poet - from the ghettoes of Detroit, New York, and Akron, Ohio to undreamed of success but also personal defeats. The revolution they hoped for never took place, and they saw their own black neighbourhoods were deluged with drugs. The FBI kept a close eye on them; and arguments, jealousy and suspicion soured their unity. But still they survived.

Genre Fiction

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