Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, the pioneering rapper of The Last Poets, has died aged 74.

Making their name, several groups of poets and musicians arose from the late 1960s African-American civil rights movement’s black nationalism. Jalal Mansur Nuriddin one of the founding members.

Without disclosing his cause of death, his family confirmed the news: “Jalal slipped quietly away this evening into the arms of Allah,” the statement reads.

He was born in Fort Greene in Brooklyn, New York, 1944. Earlier in his career he used the names Lightnin’ Rod and Alafia Pudim and, such was his prominence, was sometimes called ‘The Grandfather of Rap’.

RIP.