RIP: Gil Scott Heron Pioneer Rap Poet (HIV positive)

Very Best of Gil Scott Heron Amazon (See all World Music CDs)


 

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Gil Scott Heron Chicago-born father of bluesy rap is dead at age 62.  Damn we knew him well and his work.  He was just highlighted in video “Still Bill” because the brother was a bad ass rapper and poet.  He sang and wrote “The Revolution will not be Televised.”  It was tweeted, same thing.

Gil Scott-Heron’s most famous songs include The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, a fierce protest poem he set to music in 1970. His work was often, but not always, powerfully political, standing up as the voice of black America and addressing issues like racism, poverty, and social injustice. He was one of the first artists to address apartheid in his music.

RIP to one of tha greats, Gil Scott-Heron. Rapper Snoop Dogg

He recorded more than a dozen albums and his work was coloured by his own experiences of family breakdown, alcoholism, and heroin addiction. He spent time in jail for drug possession and was HIV positive, and confronted his problems frankly in some of his songs.

But he kept working, releasing a re-mixed version of his 2010 album – renamed We’re New Here – with Jamie Smith of The xx earlier this year.

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