The independent & unmistakable voice of the Black Power Era meet the grandfathers of rap, hip hop, slam, spoken word… A moving and unthinkable reunion of the fouding members, political, musical, trans-generational… tastefully & respectfully directed… witness the legacy, wisdom and undying commitment of the Last Poets!
Harlem 1968, a group of young poets get together and found The Last Poets. With jazz or funk as backdrop, percussions rolling and words shooting out like bursts of machine-gun fire, the group denounces the oppression of African-Americans, while painting a devastating yet humorous picture of life in the ghetto. Nearly forty years after their separation, the members of this legendary group — the founding fathers of today’s hip hop, rap and slam — come together in Paris for a one-time concert at the 2008 Banlieues Bleues Festival.
From the intimacy of their Parisian rehearsal room, they evoke the past: the birth of the collective, the years of political unrest, their high-risk creative madness. The musicians accompanying the poets for this concert/gathering are veritable legends of “Great Black Music”: Ronald Shannon Jackson, Jamaladeen Tacuma, Robert Irving III and Kenyatte Abdur-Rhaman.
The Last Poets / made in Amerikkka is a film that erases the boundaries between different genres. It’s a live recording, a musical documentary and an art film, all combined into one, and yet it goes beyond any of these. it is a film event, faithful of the spirit and the image of The Last Poets.