- Half a century ago, Abiodun Oyewole and his group The Last Poets invented gangsta rap. Their rapid-fire street corner poetry sounded like the patter of machine guns, and so did their lyrics. Abiodun’s most famous poem When The Revolution Comes called for blood to run down the streets of Harlem, and for guns and rifles to take the place of poems and essays.
Time has a habit of mellowing the anger of youth, and it turns out that fifty years later Abiodun has still not traded in his poetry book. In fact, his new album takes its title from a feeling that would have been anathema to his younger self – Gratitude.
Abiodun circa 2021 speaks with the tone of a wise elder who has been through the struggles of life and survived to tell the tale. His extraordinary rich deep voice too lends his lyrics a gravitas. And his words do seem aimed at the next wave of radicals – a generation who, like his own, have turned righteous anger at injustice into mass movements but not yet seen all the change they demand.
Abiodun’s advice though is maybe not what they hoped for from a genuine trailblazer of radical black music: “Some of us want rain without thunder and lightning… nature is balance, and all the progress we make is on a bittersweet road.” It’s not quite a revolutionary call to arms, but it seems Abiodun is a bit more circumspect these days. On Occupy, he speaks directly to a recent political movement in his home city of New York. But though protesters camped out on Wall Street calling for systemic change, Abiodun raps “Occupy your mind with positive thoughts”.
If that sounds a bit like new age philosophy, you’re not far off. Praise The Lord sounds like a new age sermon - mixing universalist shoutouts to the various deities with invocations to “know the lord is within.. each of us is a small miracle.” Again, it’s a long way from “when the revolution comes Jesus Christ is gonna be trying to catch the first gypsy cab out of Harlem”
The comparison is stark, but there’s something satisfying and valuable about someone like Abiodun surviving to give advice to those who look back to the '60’s as a model for radical art and social movements. Many of those '60’s radicals did take up arms, only to later regret it if indeed they survived the moments when purity reached its apex and the guns turned on each other. He recalls “I’ve felt the hurt of hearts not beating as one, tossed around like rubber balls only to bounce back in our faces.”
Abiodun Oyewole is still here, still believing in the potential of his neighbourhood, his culture, his artform and his human race. Gratitude closes with What I Want To See – an update of When The Revolution Comes complete with the djembe beats and backing mantra of the original. There’s no guns or blood in this one, just “the love I want to feel for all good people… a heaven on earth, where everyone can sing and dance to their own music and we live only to bless each other.”
- Andy Paine.