Gil Scott-Heron (1949–2011) was the American poet and musician whose spoken-word landmark The Revolution Will Not Be Televised helped lay hip hop's foundation. Pieces of a Man (1971), with Brian Jackson, is the essential starting point; the late-career I'm New Here (2010) is just as vital. Find Gil Scott-Heron vinyl, CDs, and reissues at Wax Trax Records.
Gilbert Scott-Heron was born in Chicago, Illinois on April 1, 1949 and raised in Jackson, Tennessee and the Bronx, New York. He attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he met longtime collaborator Brian Jackson. His debut album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox (1970) on Flying Dutchman featured the iconic spoken-word piece The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, which is widely credited as a foundational document of what would become hip hop. His subsequent work with Jackson - particularly Pieces of a Man (1971), Winter in America (1974), and From South Africa to South Carolina (1975) - built one of the most important politically engaged catalogs in American popular music. After personal struggles with addiction across the 1990s and 2000s, his late-career return album I'm New Here (2010) on XL Recordings became a critical landmark. He died on May 27, 2011 in New York City at age 62.
Gil Scott-Heron's sound combines soul jazz, jazz-funk, spoken word, soul, blues, and proto-hip hop with his distinctive baritone vocal delivery (combining sung passages with extensive spoken-word and proto-rap delivery) alongside Brian Jackson's keyboard and flute work. His political and social commentary lyrical content - addressing American racism, urban poverty, addiction, nuclear policy, and apartheid - established a template for politically engaged Black American music.
Original Flying Dutchman, Strata-East, and Arista pressings of the Gil Scott-Heron catalog are foundational items in soul jazz, jazz funk, and political music collecting. Multiple reissue programs through XL, Acoustic Sounds, and Soul Brother Records have made the catalog more accessible. Multiple anniversary editions of Pieces of a Man and Winter in America have been issued.
Listeners new to Gil Scott-Heron typically start with Pieces of a Man (1971) or I'm New Here (2010).
