Gil Scott-Heron, Poet, Rhymer, And Inspired Protest Singer, Dead At 62

Gil Scott-Heron, Poet, Rhymer, And Inspired Protest Singer, Dead At 62

"The ghetto is a haven / for the lowliest creature ever known," Gil Scott-Heron report on "Your soul and mine," a song from his album back in 2007. For four decades, this creature's eyes to the Heron low. He walked through the alleys and mean streets of Chicago, Jackson,
Tennessee in the Bronx, and filed dispatches flawless, as he did. He heard rumors of riots and cries of discontent, he faced poverty, addiction, government neglect and sheer wanton cruelty. So with his poise, his anger and his sense of humor intact, spun him everything he had seen in poetry and song.

Gil Scott-Heron is huge hip-hop, rapper, and while there are social conscience to prick, not a revolution in television, "his most famous song, still in the sample. But in 1970, when Scott-Heron recorded his live debut of "Small Talk is 125 and Lenox," there was no such thing as a hip-hop. And the singer is not rap, not quite. He was reciting a poem as vibrant as "Revolution," "Evolution (and flashback)" and "Whitey on the Moon", all of which are mocking the American priorities, angry, but the philosophical perspective of a poor African American trapped in the ghetto. "Who will pay for repairs?" - The best indicator of where he brought a recording artist - Scott-Heron sang most of the first soul piano and conga drums.

When Gil Scott-Heron died Friday at age 62, has done much to what extent his work 70 years waiting impatiently. Fact: albums like "Small Talk", "Free Will" and "Winter in America" ​​anticipated the intensity of lyrical hip-hop and social commitment of the neo-soul. Scott-Heron amalgam of jazz, blues, African music, poetry, spoken word and black activism was exclusively his, and while the rappers Kanye West KRS-ONE has been taken from him, which always sounds like music that can be done by anyone more. But Scott-Heron also looked back: with spirituals and work songs that challenged the domination of the oppressors, and the long tradition of popular protest. As Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie, Gil Scott-Heron demonstrated that popular music can be as effective vehicle of ideas would cost or a political speech. To listen to Scott-Heron would be challenged by a serious and profound voice, which, once heard, could not be easily ignored.

Events on the first recordings Gil Scott-Heron were in accordance with the conventions of jazz poetry - the movement that tried to bring the spontaneity of live performance in reading verses. Jack Kerouac and other Beat poets, for example, regularly read while accompanied by percussionists. But it was Langston Hughes, the star of the Harlem Renaissance of the '20s, who exercised the most profound influence on the Heron, and it is not unrealistic to Heron as the direct successor of Hughes. Like Hughes, Scott-very proud to be black, and forged his cadences of centuries of African-American traditions such as Hughes Heron, he took major theme daily struggles of the poor and homeless. Langston Hughes never afraid of controversy and even Gil Scott-Heron.

Scott-Heron always recognized this inspiration. After graduating from the Fieldston School in the Bronx, where he had gone to school with a scholarship, decided to attend Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, the same school that Hughes had attended. But Scott-Heron also was forced by popular music. With composer Brian Jackson - whose Rhodes electric piano and flute arrangements result still resonate in the contemporary soul - Scott-Heron recorded a string to stop states in the mid-70's in which he sang often as speech. "Winter in America", their collaboration in 1974, was a plea for compassion and humanity released at the height of the Watergate scandal, and remains a formidable document intelligent time. "Rivers of My Fathers", an eight-minute jazz soul trip, spoke of the suffering spirit sign Hughes, "The black speaks of rivers." Another song, "The Bottle", explores the intersection between the center of poverty, alcoholism and a culture of incarceration.

Funky and propulsion, "The Bottle" became a neighborhood party favorite and Billboard success.

Not all rappers have been established poet. However, those interested in extending the legacy of social commitment through the music files continues to face Gil Scott-Heron for the inspiration, and often more. De La Soul in the exhibition "The Bottle", Chuck D of Public Enemy sometimes imitated delivery Garza, Dr. Dre, RBX and quoted extensively in "time Blunt." And Kanye West has dedicated the final song of "My Beautiful Dark Fantasy Twisted" to a rethinking Scott-Heron "How N º 1", first recorded in "Small Talk", back in 1970. "Who will survive in America," asked Scott-Heron on several occasions. is an issue that remains as relevant today as it was when first asked.

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