Jalal Mansur Nuriddin

Jalal Mansur Nuriddin
Birth name	Unknown
Also known as	Alafia Pudim, Lightnin' Rod
Born	1944 (age 72–73) Brooklyn, New York
Genres	Spoken word, hip hop
Years active	1960s–present
Labels	Douglas Record, Casablanca records, Celluloid Records, On the One, On U Sound, Charly Records, Acid Jazz
Associated acts	The Last Poets, Malik & the O.G's Jalal Lightnin' Rod, Working Week Bondage Records (France)
Website	grandfatherofrap.com
Notable instruments
Congas

Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin (born in 1944) is 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.

He was born in Fort Greene in Brooklyn, New York, USA. Earlier in his career he used the names Lightnin' Rod and Alafia Pudim. He is sometimes called "The Grandfather of Rap".

A devout Muslim, poet, acupuncturist, and martial art exponent (a practitioner of a form of Bak Mei), he was incarcerated and was given early release on condition that he join the US Army, where he trained as a paratrooper but was imprisoned again within the Army for refusing to salute the American flag. He did, however, receive an honourable discharge and went to work for a bank on Wall Street. It was his experience there that spawned his poem "E-Pluribus Unum", from 1973's Chastisement. Nuriddin converted to Islam and learned to spiel, an early form of rap, which he called "spoagraphics" or "spoken pictures". It was also known as toasting, which was a form of rhythmic spoken poetry accompanied by ad hoc percussion by prison inmates, such as the famous Signified Monkey toast popularised by comedian Dolemite (not to be confused with the "toast" of Jamaican DJs, which is more reggae than rap). Nuriddin's talent and genius with words and rhythm are renowned and he has produced some epic poems such as "Be-Yon-Der", an 18-minute piece on The Last Poets album 1977 album Delights of the Garden, which was released on Celluloid Records.

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