Running with a local gang, the Fort Greene Chaplains, they fought a street rivalry with the Bed-Stuy Bishops, from further up on Myrtle Avenue, which ran through both neighborhoods.
Nuriddin joined the first version of The Last Poets, with members Gylan Kain, David Nelson, and Felipe Luciano, but left before the trio recorded and released their only album, Right On, in 1967, the soundtrack to a documentary movie of the same name.
[8] "Lightnin' Rod" was the pseudonym of Nuriddin when he released his seminal 1973 Hustlers Convention LP, featuring tracks including "Sport" and "Spoon" and "Coppin' Some Fronts for the Set".
[9] The album was released on United Artists and featured Tina Turner and The Ikettes, Bernard Purdie, Billy Preston, Cornell Dupree, and Kool and the Gang.
Most of the lyrics deal with the way of life in ghettos, i.e. hustling, drugs, gambling and money with the outcome being a shoot out with the cops followed by jail where the hustlers learn "The whole truth".
[10] In April 2008, Nuriddin reunited and reconciled with fellow Last Poets Umar Bin Hassan and Abiodun Oyewole, along with David Nelson and Felipe Luciano, all of whom appear in Made in Amerikkka, a documentary by French film-maker Claude Santiago.
Nuriddin and the Last Poets also had a cameo appearance in John Singleton's 1993 film Poetic Justice, starring Janet Jackson and Tupac Shakur.
In the film Nuriddin recites from Al Nasir's book Ordinary Guy the poem he wrote as a foreword to it, called "Malik's Mode".
The event was produced by Fore-Word Press for Riverhorse Communications, who filmed it as part of a documentary on the forgotten roots of rap called Hustlers Convention.
Nuriddin screened the film also in Canada in 2016 as part of a tour with UK poet Malik Al Nasir called "The Revolution Will Be Live", comprising seminars, poetry performances, school visits, workshops and joint screenings of Al Nasir's film also featuring Nuriddin, called Word-Up.