A Conversation with Abiodun Oyewole and Felipe Luciano Moderated by Hip-Hop pioneer Chuck D.
Monday, November 5, 2018 6:30 p.m. Apollo Theater 253 West 125 Street, New York, NY
APOLLO LIVE WIRE - LEGENDARY: THE LAST POETS
About Apollo Live Wire—Legendary: The Last Poets
As part of its Legendary series honoring iconic artists who have impacted the arts and culture, Apollo Live Wire pays tribute to the 50th anniversary of The Last Poets. Formed in 1968 in Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park, The Last Poets quickly rose to become a force on the music and poetry scene, giving voice to the Black experience and inspiring generations of artists and activists for years to come. Founding group member Abiodun
Oyewole and core group member Felipe Luciano, in c o n ve r s a tio n with Hip-Hop pioneer Chuck D., w ill d is c u s s th e g r o u p ’s origins, impact, recordings, and enduring legacy.
APOLLO LIVE WIRE: THE LAST POETS - BIOGRAPHIES Abiodun Oyewole gr ew up as Ch ar les Davis in Queens, NY. He is a poet, teacher, and founding member of the American music and spoken-word group the Last Poets (1968), which laid the groundwork for the emergence of hip hop. He performed on the Last Poets’ albums, The Last Poets (1970), Holy Terror (1993), and The Time Has Come (1997). Oyewole received his BS in biology and BA in communications at Shaw University, an MA in education at Columbia University, and is a Columbia Charles H. Revson Fellow (1989).
As one of the founding members of the Last Poets, Abiodun Oyewole has dedicated close to 50 years to using his poetry to articulate, glorify and protest the impurities of the black experience worldwide, and in America particularly. Since Abiodun's first recording with the Last Poets, his work has had a profound influence across the hip-hop landscape, having been sampled by the likes of the Notorious BIG, NWA, A Tribe Called Quest and countless others. Phrases he coined like "Party and Bullshit" have become a mainstay in the Hip Hop lexicon. Today he continues to spread his message, as a performer touring the world with the Last Poets, as an educator teaching kids arts education in NYC public schools, and as an artist collaborating with notable rappers such as Nas, Common, and Dead Prez on award-winning album projects. Abiodun has also made an unwavering commitment to the next generation of conscious young minds. A labor of love for over 30 years, ‘Brother Dune’ has opened his home every Sunday to poets, rappers, singers, philosophers, teachers, students, fans and everyday people who have an appreciation for the arts and yearn to be around love and black consciousness. The initial purpose of 'Sundays at 110' was to give aspiring poets a platform to share their work and receive feedback from a giant in the arts. Over the years, Sundays at 110 has grown into so much more, becoming a cultural institution in the Harlem community, with food, political conversation, music, and a fellowship that has touched thousands of people. Felipe Luciano is on e of the m ost dyn am ic Latino public figures in the United States of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. His eloquence, vision, and passion for issues of social justice are extraordinary and reminiscent of the oratory talent of civil rights leaders of the 1960s. This two-time Emmy recipient, former WNBC-TV New
APOLLO LIVE WIRE: THE LAST POETS - BIOGRAPHIES York news anchor, and lecturer defied adversity early in life. Luciano was born in New York City and raised in poverty in East Harlem and Brooklyn by a single Puerto Rican mother. In 1964, at the age of sixteen, Luciano was convicted of attempted manslaughter after a gang fight and sentenced to five years in prison, of which he served two. Upon his release, the Harlem antipoverty agency, HARYOU-ACT, recognized his academic potential and creative talent and urged the young Luciano to apply to college. With the support of the college readiness program, SEEK, he enrolled in the City University of New York Queens College campus, where he immediately became involved in the student activism of the 1960s. Luciano soon became known within activist circles for his membership in the Last Poets, the group of black power era artists mentored by Amiri Baraka, whose politically charged live-music and spoken word poetry performances in the 1960s prefigured the emergence of hip hop and rap in the 1970s and 1980s. As a member of the Last Poets, Luciano led provocative political workshops in Harlem that attracted progressive intellectuals and activists, including leading figures of the black power movement like Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown. As a result of his local popularity as a Harlem artist and progressive activist, Luciano was approached by a group of Puerto Rican youth in 1968 who wanted to launch a radical organization oriented around fighting against Puerto Rican poverty and racial oppression. Eventually, that cohort of young students launched the New York chapter of the Young Lords Organization (YLO), the Puerto Rican counterpart to the Black Panther Party. Luciano was elected Chairman of the New York group. Under Luciano’s leadership, the YLO changed its name to the Young Lords Party (YLP) and became one of the most influential Puerto Rican organizations of the 1960s. Luciano established himself in the YLP by articulating the grievances and aspirations of poor Puerto Ricans in an eloquently accessible manner and by identifying issues that resonated with community residents. In the fall of 1971, Luciano left the YLP after a series of political disagreements over the YLP's new directions in politics, strategy, and tactics. Of his experience in the YLP, Luciano recalls that the Young Lords worked hard, worked collectively, and engaged in revolutionary campaigns that had a lasting effect on Puerto Ricans and New York City. Following his departure from the YLP, Luciano again immersed himself in the city's black arts movement. From 1972 to 1975, he founded and produced the acclaimed radio show Latin Roots, the first English-language
APOLLO LIVE WIRE: THE LAST POETS - BIOGRAPHIES program in the United States to feature Latin culture and music, and to develop an ethnically and racially diverse audience. Latin Roots aired on WRVR, a New York-based radio station affiliated with Riverside Church and known for playing Jazz and the progressive sermons from the church. In the mid-1970s, Luciano's career evolved from radio to television when he joined the news team at NBC's New York City affiliate station as general reporter and later, as weekend anchor, becoming the first Puerto Rican news anchor of a major media network station in the United States. While at WNBC–New York, Luciano won an Emmy Award for Best Reporting and Story for a Live Special Report (a concept which he created) on prison life at Riker's Island. For his reporting at Riker’s, he also won a Silurian Award. In the 1980s, Luciano anchored Channel 2’s The People for WCBS, a weekly local series featuring current events and interviews with cultural and political movers and shakers where he was awarded a second Emmy Award. He was also the original correspondent and host of Good Day New York and cohosted with Ed Koch on a popular local political affairs show called Street Talk. Luciano's media success is attributed to his first-rate status as a communicator, his sensibility for cultural trends, and his keen analysis of the most important developments in Latino, African American, and mainstream politics. He recently earned a master’s degree from Union Theological Seminary and just finished the year as the Director of Communications for the City of Newark. Felipe Luciano lecturers at colleges, universities, unions, and community organizations nationwide. He consults on issues pertaining to emerging markets, the Latino and African American communities, youth and gang violence, coalition building, diversity, and multiculturalism. Chuck D. is considered one of the most influential lyricists in contemporary music. Both as a solo artist and as the leader of the ground-breaking hip hop group Public Enemy (which was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013), he helped pave the way for political, social, and culturally conscious hip hop. Public Enemy's albums remain among the most critically acclaimed works in the genre, including It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and Fear of a Black Planet. Chuck is also a prominent figure on the speaking circuit lending his voice to issues and causes ranging from technology to race relations.
APOLLO LIVE WIRE: THE LAST POETS - BIOGRAPHIES He’s also a founding member of the new super group Prophets of Rage, alongside members of Rage Against the Machine and Cypress Hill. Prophets of Rage have played to almost 3 million people around the world in the last year, their first full length album will be in stores September 2017. Chuck's first book was published in October 2017, This Day In Rap and Hip Hop History - it’s the first comprehensive history of hip hop music spanning over 44 years.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Yaffa Cultural Arts Inc. Presents Stories for Change Thursday, November 15 6:30 pm Stories for Change is an intergenerational sharing that explores and celebrates the art of storytelling and performance as tools for galvanizing social justice and civic engagement. Audience members will be invited to join performers from Yaffa Cultural Arts and share their stories.
For more information visit www.apollotheater.org
ABOUT THE APOLLO THEATER The Apollo is a national treasure that has had significant impact on the development of American culture and its popularity around the world. Since introducing the first Amateur Night contests in 1934, the Apollo Theater has played a major role in cultivating artists and in the emergence of innovative musical genres including jazz, swing, bebop, R&B, gospel, blues, soul, and hiphop. Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Sammy Davis, Jr., James Brown, Michael Jackson, Bill Cosby, Gladys Knight, Luther Vandross, D’Angelo, Lauryn Hill, and countless others began their road to stardom on the Apollo’s stage. Based on its cultural significance and architecture, the Apollo Theater received state and city landmark designation in 1983 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. www.apollotheater.org
APOLLO EDUCATION PROGRAM The Apollo Theater Education Program extends the Apollo’s commitment to enhancing the life of the community. The Education Program focuses on four distinct areas of learning and engagement: residencies, workshops and tours for schools; curriculum materials aligned to state and national learning standards and study guides derived from the Theater’s history; career development for teens and adults through the Apollo Theater Academy; and discussions and lectures for the public that highlight the history of the Apollo and its impact on American art, culture and entertainment.
LIVE WIRE Produced by the Apollo Theater Education Program, Apollo Live Wire is a discussion series that focuses on the arts, culture, entertainment and other topics pertinent to the legacy of the Apollo Theater. @ApolloEd
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Generous support from Apollo EmpowerHer, Conscious Kids Inc., Con Edison, Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation, Insperity, The Reginald F. Lewis Foundation, Ellis L. Phillips Foundation, The Pinkerton Foundation, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and New York State Council on the arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.