Remembering Gil Scott-Heron

In another piece of sad news, Gil Scott-Heron passed away at age 62, over the weekend. At the tail end of the 60's and throughout the 70's, Scott-Heron, along with kindred spirits the Last Poets, began recording spoken word and poetry that expressed the rage felt by disaffected urban black youth across the country. The missing link between the Black Panthers and Public Enemy, Scott-Heron's polyrhythmic rhymes were sometimes delivered over raw drumming, basically creating rap music a decade before rap music was first invented.


Gil Scott-Heron
Perhaps best known to the general public as the artist behind "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," Scott-Heron's poetry was militant, a call to arms for black Americans and an unsettling warning to white folks, who still benefited from a deeply racist power structure, years after Dr. King and desegregation. Of course, his wrath did not end there; his rhymes attacked black hypocrisy, economic injustice, willful ignorance and rampant consumerism among many other subjects. As his recordings progressed, they grew more traditionally musical, but his words remained potent. Keeping a healthy perspective on his own work, Scott-Heron also infused his verses with a biting humor that prevented things from getting unbearably heavy.

Although he never quite became a household name, there is not a rapper or new R&B/soul artist who is not indebted to Scott-Heron. In the end, he succumbed to the very injustices he decried, struggling with drug addiction and HIV for many years. Despite this, he continued to perform, record and inspire until the end of his life.

A list of artists directly inspired by Scott-Heron would be too long to list, but would include artists like Public Enemy, Eminem, Mos Def, Jay-Z, Kanye West and Common, to name just a few. Scott-Heron changed the course not only of popular music but of political discourse in America, setting a model of self-expression for generations of disenfranchised men and women.

Guest List: Top 5 Albums of 2008 (Pancho's List)

OK, here's another guest list for you, this one from my friend "Pancho" (thanks again, automatic name generator). Pancho plays bass guitar and sometimes writes reviews for legitimate music sites. (I can't tell you what, but you've probably heard of them.)

Pancho says:

I don't listen to a ton of new albums. I am an itunes picker and chooser and playlist maker, and I mostly listen to older stuff, but here you go:

1. TV on the Radio - Dear Science . . . Are they more like Earth Wind and Fire or Radiohead? They are most like TV on the Radio and way better than Talking Heads. This group is completely in control of their sound at this point, original and wholly relevant. Incredible concert in Brooklyn this year.

2. Nick Cave and the Badseeds - Dig Lazarus Dig . . . This one really rocks; the Grinderman project wore off on Nick and the result is a really funny, vivid rock and roll album with the literary effect still intact.

3. Karniege and NASA - From the Left . . . Progressive, psychedelic hip-hop in authentic and meaningful form. Like lunchroom boom-bap on acid. Really smart and thought out and tough as hell.

4. Earth - The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull . . . This might be one of the most boring instrumental albums ever made but I still really dig it. I think it's the piano flourishes that do it for me - they add this tiny little metallic sheen. If you have the time to listen to it, go ahead. Did this album even come out this year? Or was it 2007?

5. Kanye West - 808s and Heartbreak . . . . Kanye West fools a lot of people again by hiding a ton of musicianship, thought, and gigantic pop appeal in another somehow fascinatingly self-indulgent album. In case you can't hear the groove, listen to "Heartless" in your car. (If you don't have a car, buy one.) In case you don't catch the pop appeal, listen to the most seemingly retarded song such as "Robocop" twice and then catch yourself singing it on the subway and dying to listen to it again.

Honorable mention to Metallica for Death Magnetic, which you need to listen to more than once to understand what they pulled off. Seriously, it's a miracle that they made not only a decent album but a really good one that basically, jammed alll the way throughout. Kirk Hammet, as someone put it on a youtube comment, "still has the moves," definitely the star of the album and the least irritating member of Metallica.

Shout out to Isaac Hayes who died this year and dwarfs everyone on this list with a shadow the size of Jupiter. "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" and "Do Your Thing" are a good starting points if you've never indulged in this phenomenal music. The latter finds him as easy to agree with as James Brown (that's right, Ike) and possibly even more so, which is no easy feat.

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The first guest list is here.