And legendary artist and musician Jalal Mansur Nuriddin—known to many as “the grandfather of rap”—has died at the age of 73. Nuriddin co-founded the spoken word group The Last Poets in 1968, soon establishing the group as a fixture of the civil rights movement. Nuriddin was an inspiration for Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Tupac Shakur and others. This is Jalal Mansur Nuriddin performing “White Man’s Got a God Complex.”
Jalal Mansur Nuriddin: ”I done paid enough rent
For this pad to be mine
But you just want to cheat me cause I ain’t your kind
Damn, can’t you see the place is falling down?
No, you can’t dig it cause you ain’t never around
Damn I’m so poor
I don’t know what in the hell I’m gonna do any more
Not from this day to the next
Cause the white man’s got a god complex”
Jalal Mansur Nuriddin of The Last Poets has died at the age of 73.