Friday, June 15, 2018

A00108 - Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin, Founding Member of The Last Poets

Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin (b. July 24, 1944, Brooklyn, New York – d. June 4, 2018, ) was an African American poet and musician. He was one of the founding members of The Last Poets, a group of poets and musicians that evolved in the 1960s out of the Harlem Writers Workshop in New York City.
Nuriddin was born Lawrence Padilla on July 24, 1944, in Brooklyn and grew up in a housing project in the Fort Greene neighborhood. Information on survivors was not immediately available.Earlier in his career he used the names Lightnin' Rod and Alafia Pudim. He is sometimes called "The Grandfather of Rap".
He cofounded the Last Poets in May 1968, with fellow poets Omar Ben Hassan and Abiodun Oyewole, and percussionist Nilijah.

The Last Poets, the critically-acclaimed spoken-word group, won early hip-hop fans over with their political rap vocals behind percussion accompaniments in the early 1970s.

Nuriddin, under the name Lightnin' Rod, also appeared on a 1973 solo album "Hustlers Convention," an album considered to be a cornerstone in the development of what is now a part of global and hip-hop culture.

"Hustlers Convention" became one of the most sampled albums ever made, with groups like the Wu-Tang Clan, Beastie Boys, and Red Hot Chili Peppers lifting ideas from it.

At some point in 1973, Lightnin' Rod transitioned to the name of Jalal Mansur Nuriddin.

Music icons like Miles Davis and Quincy Jones hailed the Last Poets as groundbreakers in the genre that became rap and hip-hop music.  After converting to Islam, the artist changed his name from Alafia Pudim to Jalal Mansur Nuriddin. When Hassan and Oyewole left the Last Poets in 1973, poet Sulaiman El Hadi joined and the group and started using poetry over tribal percussive beats, to an all-out band with spoken word at its core.


Jalal died after a long battle with cancer on June 4, 2018.

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