The Watts Prophets consists of Otis O'Solomon, Richard Anthony Dedeaux, and Father Amde Hamilton. Watts is a region of Los Angeles which was subject to race riots in 1965 and gave birth shortly after to the Watts Writer's Workshop promoting unification, advancement, and solidarity of unity and intellectual pursuit in the African American community. Combining soul and jazz influences with African and Latin American style percussion as a backdrop to their direct, powerful, and confrontational poetry, they demanded solidarity and non-conformity within their own community and encouraged active resistance to white middle class oppression in much the same way as The Last Poets did in New York.
Finding much support in African American popular music they released two relatively unnoticed albums "Rappin' Black in a White World" and "From the Streets of Watts" and appeared on "Songs in the Key of Life" by Stevie Wonder, all of which have now become notorious and been cited by Mos Def amongst others. In a modern context its influence on the hip-hop community and slam poetry gatherings such as Def Poetry Jam is undeniable. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.