'Oooh, baby I like it raw.'
-Sushi bar customer
With a lot of things, I usually find the original is my preferred
choice. Despite more polished and better produced follow ups often appearing in
the music and comedy industries, I tend to favour the rougher, more erratic and
raw feel of their predecessors, where ideas are more fresh and awakening.
So, you ask, what is the original rap album? Many would point to the
likes of Gil Scott Heron and the Last Poets as possible contenders, quite
rightly so. But with Heron switching between poetry to drums and soul tracks,
his maybe can't be considered as 'rap' albums. And The Last Poets clearly laid
foundations with their spoken word raps over drums.
But, under the sort of pseudonym you would expect of a modern rapper,
with raps that flowed in rhythm to the music of Kool and the Gang, it was Last
Poet member, Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin as Lightnin' Rod,
with the concept album 'Hustlers Convention', that can perhaps truly be called
the raw original. And this is the answer that filmmaker Mike Todd has come to
with his documentary of the same name.
Telling the story of prison story toasting and its
influence on popular culture styles of the Sixties and early Seventies, 'Hustlers
Convention' (the documentary) uses interviews with various poets of the era to
show its development into early forms of rap music. Throughout these interviews,
animated sequences visualise the story of 'Hustlers Convention' (the album) ,
throwing in interviews with rappers KRS-One, Chuck D, Melle Mel Ice-T and MC
Lyte discussing their memories of the album and the influence it had on them
and an entire culture. There is then talk of the album's making and interviews
with Nuriddin, rapping about life, the universe and everything, before British
poets that have worked with him telling their tales.
'Hustlers Convention' (the documentary) shuns a
linear narrative, mixing different periods in time throughout, with different
parts of the story flowing likes rivers in parallel towards the film's
conclusion. This means it never gets too tiresome, labouring a single point,
keeping the rhythm flowing, in what is a reasonably timed ninety-plus minutes. The
different generations and backgrounds of those involved also shed different
lights and perspectives, making it far from one dimensional.
While the animated accompaniment to the songs could
draw comparisons with 'Searching for Sugar Man', the similarities can be
stopped there, with Nuriddin involved throughout and happy to talk about his
life, rather than being made into a mythical, mystery man. Though maybe this is
what 'Hustlers Convention' (the documentary) lacks: a hook.
'Hustlers Convention' (the album) is made out to be
the sort of album that everybody knows, yet nobody knows; the most copied album
in history, that nobody's ever heard of. But not enough is perhaps made of this
irony. With Kool and the Gang signed to a different label than that of the
release of 'Hustlers Convention' (the album), the album was quickly pulled,
with few copies officially sold, leaving little fortune or fame for the man
where it all began. In the words of the album's final track 'Sentenced to the
Chair': 'The real
hustlers who were ripping off billions from the unsuspecting millions who are
programmed to think they could win.'
But maybe the fact that this isn't dwelt
on too much is again a strength. Nurridin himself, now in his seventies, doesn't
sound too bitter about this fact, performing the album at London's Jazz Cafe at
the film's climax, knowing that his words will have influence for generations
to come, and maybe 'Hustlers Convention' (the documentary) can claim its part
in furthering this.
'Raw
I'ma give it to ya, with no trivia...'
