| Be Bop or Be Dead | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1993 | |||
| Genre | Rap, jazz | |||
| Label | Axiom [1] | |||
| Producer | Bill Laswell | |||
| Umar Bin Hassan chronology | ||||
| ||||
Be Bop or Be Dead is the debut solo album by the American musician and Last Poet Umar Bin Hassan, released in 1993. [2] [3] Hassan had spent many of the preceding years isolated from his group and his music while dealing with drug and personal issues. [4] [5] The album was a commercial disappointment. [6]
The album was produced by Bill Laswell. [7] Laswell reached out to the Last Poets after the group had performed in a scene of Poetic Justice ; only Hassan returned to the studio after the first day of recording sessions. [8] Bernie Worrell, Buddy Miles, Aïyb Dieng, Bootsy Collins, Foday Musa Suso, and Abiodun Oyewole were among the musicians who contributed to Be Bop or Be Dead. [9] [10] [11] A total of 15 musicians played on the album. [12]
"This is Madness" and "Niggers Are Scared of Revolution" are remakes of Last Poets songs. [13] "Malcolm" is a biographical song about Malcolm X. [14]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [15] |
| Calgary Herald | A [16] |
| Chicago Tribune |  [17] |
| MusicHound R&B: The Essential Album Guide | [10] |
| Spin Alternative Record Guide | 8/10 [18] |
| USA Today | [19] |
Trouser Press called the album an "acidic, jazz-centric" project, writing that it "is filled with riffs on jazz legends and autobiographical notes on the successes and failures of black nationalism." [9] The Washington Post concluded that "its most moving pieces offer mature reflections on life, love and the deadly seductions of the street." [8] The Washington City Paper panned the Last Poets remakes, but admired "'Personal Things' and 'Bum Rush', [which] recall the more traditional sound sculptures of early Last Poets, with a lone voice riding over a predominant mix of African-based instrumentation—dousongonni, kora, chatan, congas, and berimbau." [13] The Chicago Tribune opined that, "if Hassan has an overriding message, it is for African-Americans to learn to love themselves, while his poems confront the obstacles, both social and psychological, that prevent that from happening." [17] The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette declared: "The attitude is punk, but the voice is black and impatient." [20]
Vibe determined that, "outside of the remake of 'Niggers Are Scared of Revolution', the album just doesn't work ... [Hassan] has been in a cultural time warp for the past two decades." [21] Billboard deemed the album "an incomparable treatise by a true pioneer of our modern oral tradition." [22] Newsday stated that the songs "concern the energy of bebop jazz, Malcolm X, pop music, love, honor and 42nd Street ... 'Bum Rush', a didactic yet sympathetic look at the urban dilemma, observes, 'There's always the streets. From shoeshine boys to big time to trick or treat'." [23] The Calgary Herald called Hassan "as powerful as ever," writing that "his anger, his call for revolution, has not diminished over the years." [16] USA Today missed "rap's catchy rhymes and syncopation," noting that Hassan "speaks over driving backbeats or jazzy rhythms." [19]
AllMusic wrote that Laswell "virtually recreated the Last Poets tapestry, except that this time there's an electronic overlay as well as a percussive one ... [Hassan's] voice hasn't been dulled by the years." [15] The Spin Alternative Record Guide labeled Be Bop or Be Dead "a triumphant return to the inspiration and intensity of the Poets' first two albums." [18]
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Niggers Are Scared of Revolution" | 5:23 |
| 2. | "AM" | 7:59 |
| 3. | "Bum Rush" | 5:29 |
| 4. | "This Is Madness" | 5:27 |
| 5. | "Malcolm" | 6:23 |
| 6. | "Pop" | 4:41 |
| 7. | "Love" | 6:07 |
| 8. | "40 Deuce Street" | 3:48 |
| 9. | "Personal Things" | 4:30 |
| 10. | "This Is Madness (Metal Mix)" | 5:33 |
The Last Poets is a poetry collective and musical group that arose in the late 1960s as part of the African-American civil rights movement and black nationalism. The name was inspired by revolutionary South African poet Keorapetse Kgositsile who believed he was in the last era of poetry before guns took over.
William Otis Laswell is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. His music draws from funk, world music, jazz, dub, and ambient styles.
Pharoah Sanders was an American jazz saxophonist. Known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on the saxophone, as well as his use of "sheets of sound", Sanders played a prominent role in the development of free jazz and spiritual jazz through his work as a member of John Coltrane's groups in the mid-1960s, and later through his solo work. He released over thirty albums as a leader and collaborated extensively with vocalist Leon Thomas and pianist Alice Coltrane, among many others. Fellow saxophonist Ornette Coleman once described him as "probably the best tenor player in the world".
Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin was an 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.
Umar Bin Hassan is an American poet and recording artist, associated with The Last Poets. He sold his younger sister's record player to purchase a bus ticket to New York City, where he joined the Last Poets. In the mid-1990s, he recorded a solo album titled Be Bop or Be Dead on Bill Laswell's Axiom Records through Island/PolyGram.
Roy Anthony Hargrove was an American jazz musician and composer whose principal instruments were the trumpet and flugelhorn. He achieved worldwide acclaim after winning two Grammy Awards for differing styles of jazz in 1998 and 2002. Hargrove primarily played in the hard bop style for the majority of his albums, but also had a penchant for genre-crossing exploration and collaboration with a variety of hip hop, soul, R&B and alternative rock artists. As Hargrove told one reporter, "I've been around all kinds of musicians, and if a cat can play, a cat can play. If it's gospel, funk, R&B, jazz or hip-hop, if it's something that gets in your ear and it's good, that's what matters."
Axiom was a record label founded by musician Bill Laswell in 1990 with the support of Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records.
Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool is a compilation album in the Red Hot AIDS Benefit Series with performers from jazz, pop, rock, and rap. "Stolen Moments" is a jazz standard composed by Oliver Nelson, and is best known for its inclusion on the 1961 album The Blues and the Abstract Truth.
Perfect Machine is the thirty-seventh album by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock. It was the third and final album in Hancock’s series co-produced by Bill Laswell. Guests include bassist Bootsy Collins.
The Last Poets is the debut studio album by spoken word recording artists The Last Poets. It was released in 1970 through Douglas Records. Recording sessions took place at Impact Sound Studio with production by East Wind Associates, managers of The Last Poets at the time of recording. The album peaked at #29 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and at #3 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart in the United States.
"Party and Bullshit" is a song by the American hip hop artist The Notorious B.I.G., credited as BIG. It is his first single and was released as the fourth promotional single for the soundtrack to the 1993 film Who's the Man?.
Funkcronomicon is a 1995 various artists collection of tracks produced by Bill Laswell under the name Axiom Funk, after Laswell's associated record label. It is a 2-CD set that was released by Island Records. Funkcronomicon features heavy participation from various members of Parliament-Funkadelic, to the degree that Funkcronomicon is widely considered to be a full-fledged P-Funk album. The album features what may be Pedro Bell's last authentic artistic renderings, as well as P-Funk guitarist Eddie Hazel's last recordings before his death in 1992. The album comprises newly recorded tracks, as well as tracks that have been featured on other Bill Laswell productions. Produced and compiled at Greenpoint Studio in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, Funkcronomicon contains songs that were recorded as early as Maceo Parker's For All the Kings Men (1989) period. The album title is a play on Necronomicon, a fictional book.
J. Beez Wit the Remedy is the third album by the Jungle Brothers, released in 1993 on Warner Bros. Records.
Pieces of Woo: The Other Side is an album by the former Parliament-Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell. It was released by CMP Records in 1993. None of the tracks contain drums or percussion. Pieces of Woo features Fred Wesley, Buckethead, and Umar Bin Hassan.
Free Agent: A Spaced Odyssey is the fifth solo album by former Parliament-Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell. The album was released by Polystar Records in Japan in 1997. The album features guest musicians Buckethead, Umar Bin Hassan and Bill Laswell. Free Agent has never been distributed by any major or independent record label outside Japan.
Holy Terror is an album by rap/spoken word pioneers The Last Poets, released in 1995. The album was financed and released by P-Vine Records in Japan and then released by Rykodisc Records in the United States and the United Kingdom later that same year, with a rerelease in 2004 by Innerhythmic. The U.S. and UK releases contain a bonus track titled "Black and Strong (Homesick)."
This is a list of releases by Material.
Panthalassa: The Music of Miles Davis 1969–1974 is a remix album by Miles Davis, released on February 16, 1998, by Sony Records. It contains compositions from prior albums, including In a Silent Way (1969), On the Corner (1972), and Get Up With It (1974), remixed by Bill Laswell; it is subtitled "Reconstruction and Mix Translation by Bill Laswell". The album was composed as a dark, continuous tone poem divided by four sections of Davis' jazz fusion recordings. Panthalassa received generally positive reviews from music critics and sold well, charting at number four on the Billboard Top Jazz Albums.
Larry McDonald is a Jamaican percussionist. He was born in Port Maria, Jamaica in 1937. McDonald played congas with Carlos Malcolm's band, Toots and the Maytals and the Count Ossie Band. He plays a wide variety of traditional percussion instruments.
Headfirst into the Flames: Live in Europe is the fifth live album by the free jazz group Last Exit, released in 1993 by MuWorks Records.
