Gil Scott-Heron’s music career began in 1970 in a small New York City nightclub at the corner of 125th and Lenox.
Backed by only bongo and congas, Scott-Heron went on stage with 44 minute’s worth of political and black activist poetry. He began the night with The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, which became a counterculture anthem.
Scott-Heron’s life ended on Friday afternoon in New York City, not far from that club. He was 62 years old.
His music will forever be remembered as prototype for rap – his was a speak-sing style often sampled by rappers – but it was more notable for its humour, loaded wordplay and brave statements. His last album, 2010’s I’m New Here, was lauded by this newspaper.
Leading up to his landmark live debut, the aforementioned Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, Scott-Heron was writing poems and songs – The Revolution Will Not Be Televised being one of them – while attending Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.
In 1969, he met a jazz musician named Brian Jackson, who would go on to be a frequent collaborator. His most complete album to date, arguably, is Winter In America, recorded with Jackson in 1974.
In his lyrics, Scott-Heron was frequently outraged by the presidency of Richard Nixon, the invasion of Vietnam, and the post civil rights-era struggles of blacks. He later rhymed about the dangers of nuclear power, Iran-Contra and other policies of Ronald Reagan.
Scott-Heron’s songs spoke to a specific time and place, littered with references to names and places history is slowly forgetting.
Scott-Heron took pride in these messages, and spoke them like a sermon – convinced his version was the truth. In an interview with NOW in 1999, Scott-Heron spoke about this.
“The good thing is that the message in these records still rings true…I don’t know if kids now know who Spiro Agnew was…”
His rambling manner of communicating at the time hinted at personal demons he could not hide.
Through much of his career, Scott-Heron was troubled by substance abuse and petty crime. In his later years, he had a painfully obvious addiction to crack. On one interview before the release of I’m New Here, Scott-Heron openly smoked a crack pipe during the interview.
At the time of his death, all of his teeth had fallen out.
His personal troubles took him out of recording, spending much of the last decade serving time for a variety of drug-related offenses.
Still there was renewed interest in Scott-Heron’s work in the last year. Kanye West closed out his recent album with a re-cut Scott-Heron poem, and his 2010 album was the result of British label XL pleading with him to record again.
But while his career might’ve have been on an upswing, his health and battles with addiction were not. Before his death, he spent his time in a small, dark, ground floor apartment in Harlem, smoking crack almost constantly.
Up until his last album, he held onto the ability to write songs so blunt and provocative, they were almost uncomfortable to listen to. One of those was New York Is Killing Me. It too turned out to be the truth.
