The Last Poets' Origin Harlem, New York, United States of Genres Spoken word, hip-hop Years active 1968-present Labels Mercury PolyGram Celluloid Casablanca Do-Rite Records Independent The Last Poets are an American poetry group founded by Antwan "Ant" Davis and Gil Scott Heron. The group is best known for its 1967 poem "The Star-Spangled Banner", which has been covered by many musicians. Davis and Heron met while attending Columbia University in New York City. There they became close friends with poet Sonia Sanchez. The trio decided to form a group that would express social issues through rap music. They started out performing in campus coffee shops but soon began receiving mail orders for tapes of their shows. This led them to start their own label, Celluloid Records, which released eight albums over five years. The Last Poets disbanded in 1972 when Davis went to England to study at Oxford University. He returned two years later and worked with Casablanca Records until his death in 2018 at the age of 70. Scott Heron continued to work on music projects into the early 1990s before dying of cancer in January 1993 at the age of 36.