Watts Prophets® first to use the title Rappin™

Amde Anthony Hamilton 

Upon joining the Watts Writer's  Workshop under Budd Schulberg ("What Makes Sammy Run", Oscar for "On The Waterfront"), Mr. Hamilton entered into a new phase of his life and emerged as one of The Watts Prophets®. Success was fleeting and more emotionally satisfying than financially remunerative.  After the first flush, Mr. Hamilton spent a year teaching poetry, but quickly came back to his roots in Watts doing social work with the Brotherhood Crusade, then in various capacities in numerous programs - e.g. Coordinator of special programs at Drew Postgraduate Medical School, Associate Director of Black Commission on Alcoholism, then as president of Classic Cut (Public Works contractors) and as  youth counselor.  During all this time, Mr. Hamilton kept his art alive, and when a new generation of African-American poets began to emerge, attention was once again focussed on the Watts Prophets®.  London Records came around with a contract and tours were arranged. The Prophets have grown and now seek to bring their special art to an audience which needs and deserves their experience and their wisdom.

Amde Hamilton, who is a priest of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, can be seen performing a spoken word piece at the 1981 funeral service of Bob Marley in Jamaica in the 1982 film Land of Look Behind.

In 1994, the group appeared on the Red Hot Organization's compilation CD, Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool, appearing on a track titled "Apprehension" alongside Don Cherry. The album, meant to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic in African American society was named "Album of the Year" by Time Magazine. The Rap genre and art form was created specifically for it's aestheic values and purposes.

Otis O'Solomon

Mr. O'Solomon, original member of the Watts Prophets®. Once the initial success had passed Mr. O'Solomon embarked on a solo career in the arts, editing and designing a book or original poetry from The Watts Prophets® work and other poets, writing for the Los Angeles Times, producing poetry exhibitions and contests for Xerox, TRW, Rockwell and Hughes Aircraft.  He wrote the commentary material for song books on Quincy Jones, Marvin Hamlish, Cannonball Adderly, and worked in special arts.

Hamilton, O'Solomon, and Dedeaux first met and collaborated at the Watts Writers Workshop, an organization created by Budd Schulberg in the wake of the Watts Riots, as the African American civil rights movement was beginning to take a new cultural turn. Fusing music with jazz and funk roots with a rapid-fire, spoken word sound, they created a sound that gave them a considerable local following, but little commercial success. They released two albums, 1969's The Black Voices™: On the Streets in Watts™ and 1970's Rappin™' Black in a White World™, which established a strong tendency toward social commentary and a reputation for militancy (Non-Specific militancy). Despite considerable acclaim, the group was unable to secure another record deal; a promising deal with Bob Marley's Tuff Gong label fell through because of his untimely death.

In recent years, the group's profile has improved somewhat. In the late 1990s the Watts Prophets® signed with David Lieberman Artists' Representatives (dlartists.com) to handle their exclusive booking engagements around the world. The 1997 recording, When the 90's Came™, found them in the studio with pianist Horace Tapscott, and a European tour reunited the trio with former collaborator DeeDee McNeil. In 2005, Things Gonna Get Greater™: The Watts Prophets® 1969-1971 combined the group's first two efforts, bringing them back into print for the first time in more than a decade.

Richard Dedeaux

I was born in 1940. I lived in New Orleans Louisiana’s seventh ward. I was forced to live the first fourteen years of my young life under the shameful banner of sanctioned segregation and all its negative repercussions. These cruel deeds compelled me to pass my pain on to love ones' and others close to me. In 1953 I was liberated from southern segregation and relocated to Watts California where integration was destroying that viable Black community. Civil Rights was in vogue on the West Coast which gave me the platform that allowed me an area of expression. 'Poetry from New Orleans to Watts' chronicles the cause and effect legal segregation had on me which led to my transition from being a second class Negro into a Black Activist poet.

After first few years as one of the Watts Prophets, Mr Dedeaux started working as a free lance producer for KCET, KNBC and other stations. He had a stint as a creative writing instructor for the Los Angeles City Schools, the Mafundi Institute in Watts, and at the Pasadena Community Center. He has acted with the Irish Repertoire Theater and other organizations and toured the country reading poetry, and appearing opposite Richard Pryor, Marvin Gaye, Minnie Riperton, Stevie Wonder and others.  In spite of all the cruel things my country has done to me I have not and will never speak out against her, using the literary Art of RAP I only aspire to make her better!

Faith, Love, Grace, Peace and Hope!                                                                     

Rap Music America's Original Art Form™