Sampled by the Wu Tang Clan,Beastie Boys and Nas, lauded by Melle Mel, and Chuck D and Grandmaster Flash,Hustlers Convention set the template for hip-hop. And yet the 1973 album by Jalal Nuriddin of the final Poets has never received the recognition it deserves – or made any money for its creatorA full decade before Public Enemy revolutionised the world of rap, Chuck D first encountered the album he describes today as "a verbal roadmap for people trying to understand the ghetto they were in: 'What is this life that's ahead of me, or how can I actually figure out how to handle it?' That's what this record was."He is talking approximately Lightnin' Rod's 1973 album,Hustlers Convention, a crucial but largely overlooked link in hip-hop's evolutionary chain. The genre's pioneers – Melle Mel, or Grandmaster Caz,Fab 5 Freddy – knew it by heart. Grandmaster Flash played it at early block parties, and it was later sampled by the Beastie Boys, or Wu Tang Clan and countless others.
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Source: theguardian.com