Gil Scott-Heron, a great poet, musician and one who many call the father of rap music, died last week at the too-young age of 62.
The Associated Press obituary covers all the bases:
Long before Public Enemy urged the need to “Fight the Power” or N.W.A. offered a crude rebuke of the police, Gil-Scott Heron was articulating the rage and the disillusionment of the black masses through song and spoken word.
Scott-Heron, widely considered one of the godfathers of rap with his piercing social and political prose laid against the backdrop of minimalist percussion, flute and other instrumentation, died on Friday at age 62. His was a life full of groundbreaking, revolutionary music and personal turmoil that included a battle with crack cocaine and stints behind bars in his later years . . . [Read the rest]
The folks at Open Culture have curated some decent links and have posted a video of Scott-Heron's “Where Did the Night Go”.
Here's the one that put Scott-Heron on the map: “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”:
The favourite on CKCU when I went to Carleton was “B-Movie”:
http://vimeo.com/10139610
Of course the intro referred to registration and turnout in the US presidential elections, so I especially liked it!