A Red Cantaloupe Experience Honors ‘Griot’ Legacy, Father Amde Hamilton

Father Amde Hamilton recently told me he comes from a generation of artists like Nina Simone, who asked, “If an artist doesn’t relate to his environment, what else does he have?”

Father Amde Hamilton is a member of the Watts Prophets. Hamilton continued his thought, explaining, an artist has to relate to what’s going on and the truth. 

“Artists think differently,” Hamilton said. “I was told by Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry and Billy Higgins that style was the death of creativity. So, that’s what I’m saying.” 

Hamilton was referring to members of the top tier of iconoclastic jazz musicians in Los Angeles history. Coleman was a pioneer in the free jazz renaissance. Initially viewed as a radical disruptor, the multi-instrumentalist was ultimately celebrated as a visionary innovator. 

In LA, he found his tribe, notably collaborating with trumpeter Cherry, who played a significant role in Coleman’s groundbreaking bands. Cherry later emerged as a trailblazer in world music, fusing African, Middle Eastern and Indian influences into his work. 

Higgins, who played in Coleman’s quartet, came from Blue Note Records, where he was a house drummer. He remains one of the most important and controversial drummers in music history, an uncommonly versatile and intuitive player. Higgins cofounded The World Stage in LA and taught jazz studies at UCLA.

Hamilton also knew Robert Carmack, producer of The Red Cantaloupe Experience, who was also a native of Watts. In the 1960s and ’70s, Watts was a place where artists of every kind collaborated, creating a renaissance of Black art in LA. 

Reviving that tradition, this spring, Pocket Jazz and Hipster Sanctuary once again presented “A Red Cantaloupe Experience” at Roscoe’s Jazz Lounge in Long Beach. This iteration was in tribute to Quincy Jones, the great composer, record producer, arranger, conductor, trumpeter and bandleader. This event also honored the legacy of poet (‘griot,’ as he says) Father Amde Hamilton, bestowing him with the Cultural Icon Award in poetry, music and community service in recognition of legacy and outstanding accomplishment in the performing arts.

As expected, the atmosphere in the room was full of energy. Red Cantaloupe audiences are known for their enthusiastic appreciation, often responding vocally — and sometimes even through song — to the cultural legacies celebrated in this series.

Carmack consistently showcases some of the best jazz musicians in Los Angeles in his series. The band included Knick Smith on keys, Rickey Woodard on saxophone, Edwin Livingston on bass, Alex Bailey on drums, special guest Daryl Darden on guitar and vocals and Jeff Robinson was the featured vocalist. The band brought a smooth and funky show encompassing the best of ‘Q’ to a highly engaged, full house. Three shows in, with more to come, this is what you can expect from A Red Cantaloupe Experience. Carmack likes to keep the ambiance flowing with excellent music, good vibes and community and he is successful in this endeavor. 

The Community Factor 

A Red Cantaloupe, along with the community, celebrates legends who have helped shape the LA music and cultural scene.

Father Hamilton was part of the Watts Prophets for 48 years, along with Richard Dedeaux and Otis O’Solomon. The Watts Prophets formed in 1967 at Budd Schulberg Watts Writers Workshop in the wake of the Watts Riots, and the emerging Black Power movement. 

This represented a turn toward more nationalist and Pan-Africanist ideas of liberation, alternatives to integration in favor of political power and control in communities where they have significant numbers. Coming out of that Watts Writers Workshop, Hamilton formed The Watts Prophets. And from that group came “the first rap album ever on earth,” — (Father Amde Hamilton) called Rappin’ Black in a White World. Fusing music with jazz and funk roots with a rapid-fire, spoken word sound, Watts Prophets created a sound that gave them a significant local following but little commercial success. It featured two female members, Helen Mingleton, who named the group Watts Prophets, and Dee Dee McNeil, who became a member in 1970 and remained for two years. The Watts Prophets worked and recorded with artists like Quincy Jones, Don Cherry, Billy Higgins and Horace Tapscott, and soon they took their rap international.

Father Hamilton is a Rastafarian and was ordained as a priest of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in 1975, which he noted, Rastafarians have a significant connection to. The Prophets went to the Caribbean and worked with the Rastafarians and Bob Marley. Later, Marley came to Watts to work with Hamilton and gangs. The two also worked together with the youth organization in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church worldwide teaching them history and culture. Eventually, Marley and the Prophets were going to make an album together, when, unfortunately, Marley died.

Father Hamilton spoke to Random Lengths about the Watts Prophets and their works. Of the decades he spent in the Watts Prophets, Hamilton said they were “griots, not poets.”

“… Meaning that we [had an] oral tradition, we talked about our community,” he said. “We were the first ones to use the art form of rap as a revolutionary tool and that’s what we did. We brought poetry into what you see today. There was no poetry slams or poetry all over the world. Rap had a baby called hip hop, not hip hop that had a baby called rap.”

Hamilton said the world got it confused. 

“Hip hop is a culture; rap is an art form. Wherever there was jazz, there was rap and it started in Africa and it rolled on into what you see today, it came through slavery … and rap is sprinkled amongst all of our music, our gospel, our jazz, but that’s what the Watts Prophets were doing. We were the ones who brought poetry in the clubs … we took it from the podium to the stage. And we used it in a revolutionary manner. That’s who I am.”

The Watts Prophets were “a living bridge from the civil rights of the sixties to the Hip Hop generation [that followed].” Hamilton explained that The Prophets have been mistitled as jazz poets. Having been born in a community with many of the world’s great jazz musicians, they learned from and interacted with these talented musicians. Sometimes, he noted, they were the only ones open to something new and would encourage the Prophets to continue developing their art form.

The Watts Prophets performed everywhere.

“We were street poets,” said Hamilton. “The streets was our stage; community centers, churches, dance clubs, skating rinks, wherever people was.” 

When asked about his thoughts on the prevalence of poetry, especially around LA, without missing a beat, Hamilton said that was the intention of the Watts Prophets.

“We knew what we were doing,” he said. “We were using it as a tool. We came from the Watts riots. We wanted to open an area of expression for those with no area of expression. And we’re a complete success. They’re rapping on every continent on Earth.” 

Hamilton referenced a book by William Cleveland and Clarissa Estés on what the griot called the author’s interpretation of how five different countries used art as a revolution. The Watts Prophets, he said, represented America in that book titled Art and Upheaval: Artists on the World’s Frontlines.

People knew about the Prophets underground and across the world, Hamilton said. They never had any advertisements or campaigns to tell people who they were. The Prophets might have sold 10,000 records, Hamilton said, but they were duplicated at the time, in Vietnam, when there were cassette tapes. That’s how their verses spread across the world. 

“We weren’t looking for applause anyway,” Hamilton said. “Not applause, we had a cause. And that cause has been taken up continuously till now. Rap music is all over the world. It’s not … the model that you hear here in America: 16 bars and motherfucker this and that. It’s not like that all over the world. It’s being used as a revolutionary tool. It’s giving an area of expression to those, again, who had no way of expressing. That’s why we did it.

“It’s a beautiful art form, a fine art form.” Hamilton said. “Quincy Jones said it’s no different than jazz. As a jazz musician is blowing his solo, so is a rapper and the voice is the first instrument. [Of] all of the elements that you all hear, which have been blocked by the industry, rap to us means to say it, sang it, scat it, shout it, hum it, however you can use it to communicate.”

Hamilton noted the greatest rappers during his era were artists like Barry White. He explained, “we look at him as a singer … the industry called what he did a monologue but Barry White would open his songs with a rap. So did Lou Rawls.

“They always take all our art forms and make them what they want in this commercial industry,’ Hamilton said.

These days Hamilton is working on completing his life story, and he’s still doing lectures and poetry readings. The griot is still communicating, whether he responds in straight talk or verse, this legend possesses a keen eye for what’s true in a world that seldom recognizes truth anymore.

Hamilton said his book should be available in about a year. He also published a book about his Creole background in Louisiana, titled; Ebony Creole Whispers, Amde Watt’s Prophet.

Details: www.instagram.com/AmdePoet and www.pocketjazzpresents.org