The Icon: Gil Scott-Heron
February 12, 2010In The Icon we profile those who change music. This month, Dan Rule explores the canon of soul poet, spoken word activist and hip hop forefather Gil Scott-Heron.
Gil Scott-Heron’s influence can’t be solely measured via his music. In a four-decade career, the 61-year-old poet/master lyricist not only foreran one of contemporary music’s most significant, revolutionary movements, but was a key voice of ’70s black American activism.
His social critique catch-call The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (from 1970’s debut Small Talk at 125th and Lenox) has entered the vernacular. Scott-Heron’s life has revolved around the word. He spent his early years in Tennessee before moving to The Bronx with his mother in his early teens. His experience of the decaying, crime-choked New York borough changed him irrevocably. He put pen to paper, recording the palpitating street rhythms in raw, agile phraseology.
He released his infamous debut novel The Vulture in 1968, at 19. Scott-Heron’s collaboration with composer/producer/pianist Brian Jackson produced several popular records – including Free Will (1972), Winter in America (1974), The First Minute of a New Day (1975) – and his work with Chic’s Malcolm Cecil and Nile Rodgers topped the R’n’B charts in the ’80s.
But commercial recognition never interested Scott-Heron. His work represents a proclamation from the street, a call to action and empowerment, a pithy reflection of black life in a white America; it is the progenitor for political rap. Contemporary hip hop would not exist without him.
Recent decades have revealed a troubled if brilliant man. Having virtually disappeared from music following 1994’s Spirits, Scott-Heron was gaoled in 2001, and later in 2007, for cocaine-related offences. But Scott-Heron continues to be creatively active. After being approached by producer/XL Recordings owner Richard Russell in prison, Scott-Heron and Russell went on to record the brilliant, grit-scarred new album I’m New Here.
Speaking to MAG of the experience, Russell described working with Scott-Heron as nothing short of inspirational. “Gil’s always been a radical and his music has always been radical and pushed the boundaries,” he said. “This record continues that tradition. While there has been a long hiatus between records, he’s never made a bad record. A lot of artists can get a bit corny as they get older; the edges go. But that’s never, ever happened to him.”
I’m Here Now is released Feb 23 via Remote Control/Inertia. Visit: gilscottheron.net
(Illustration by Guy Shield/The Slattery Media Group)
