Gil Scott-Heron: a voice of the revolution
Poet, writer, power source
He never claimed the title “Godfather of Hip Hop,” but for our generation of music artists, he fathered the best in us.
Gil Scott-Heron, one of a rare breed of popular revolutionary poets, fits into the class of artists from the second Black American arts renaissance—a result of the aftermath of 1960s civil unrest around the nation.
Scott-Heron was inspired by those artists who participated in the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in the early 1960s. He looked to the works of Nina Simone, Richie Havens, Huey P. Newton, Billie Holiday, Langston Hughes, and Otis Redding in order to devise the best method of reaching Black America with community-changing messages.
Artists like those from the Watts Writers Workshop (WWW), which was an instrumental group of young writers initiated by screenwriter Budd Schulberg in the aftermath of the 1965 Watts Revolt of South Central Los Angeles, had been heavily instrumental in popularizing Scott-Heron’s style of delivery. These writers, including Quincy Troupe, Eric Priestley and the Watts Prophets, used their voices to address the concerns of Black boys and girls in an era which saw the assassination of many revolutionary Black public figures, including Medgar Evers, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X.
Johnie Scott, who currently teaches Pan African Studies at Cal State University, Northridge, is a founding member and survivor of that very group of voices from Los Angeles. His beginnings as a poet and writer in the WWW allowed him to become an award-winning filmmaker, spawning one of the earliest gang truces in Los Angeles.
Scott-Heron, like Scott, was able to find a need within the community and voice his concern through music.
After receiving a master’s degree in creative writing from John Hopkins University in 1972, Scott-Heron journeyed on a mission which saw him produce songs featuring his smooth lyrical flow atop vicious jazz-influenced tracks.
Scott-Heron’s sardonic piece “Whitey on the Moon,” gave us the guts to challenge the larger White establishment by calling attention to those “unimportant” events which were celebrated by society, while the rights of Black Americans were devastatingly compromised.
His voice also addressed the concerns of the Black community, including the influx of crack cocaine, police brutality, welfare, war and the horrific assassination of our Black leaders. The content of his most famous work, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” is a testament to the power of direct messages to the people in the style and delivery of revolutionaries like Malcolm X.
Scott-Heron’s ability to shoot a straight arrow with his writing was combined with his immense musical background to form the sound of the movement. With the release of his earliest albums and performances in churches and concert halls around America, we were listening.
His style would later evolve into the music of the Hip Hop generation, particularly Rap. Although a plethora of Black musicians helped to set the wheels of Hip Hop into motion, Scott-Heron most closely influenced the delivery of rappers in Jamaica Queens and Brooklyn, who used their voices to decry the struggles of a late-1970s New York.
Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, Afrika Bambaataa and DJ Kool Herc, all adopted Scott-Heron’s approach to revolutionary poetry and music. Their monumental success as the fathers of Hip Hop has allowed Rap music to take a dominating position atop the music industry.
However, with the current erosion of revolutionary rap, Scott-Heron challenged contemporary poets to study music and learn how to blend words with sounds without simply reciting lyrics over a tight beat.
In the latter part of his life, Scott-Heron rebuked the title Godfather of Hip Hop, opting instead to realign himself with those early revolutionary writer/performers like The Last Poets, The Watts Prophets and members of the Watts Writers Workshop.
Our generation is indebted critically to Gil Scott-Heron, for he introduced us to the power of hard-hitting revolutionary art. Although artists like Jill Scott, Common, Mos Def and Erykah Badu exist in the legacy of Gil Scott-Heron, his lasting message is that our generation must recapture the essence of revolutionary art in order to save our people; in order to save ourselves.
See related story on page 7.
James B. Golden, MPA, is a Los Angeles-based music journalist. He has previously edited the Hip Hop Think Tank academic journal and Kapu-Sens Literar “Sweet Potato Pie Underneath the Sun’s Broiler.” He may be reached at www.JamesBGolden.com.
By George Dean and Ortensia Lopez
The Greenlining Institute
“I am Black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. Look not upon me because I am Black because the sun hath scorched me.” —Song of Solomon
The 1960s not only birthed a political revolution, it created a Black cultural renaissance that impacted music, art, beauty and fashion. Known as the “Black is Beautiful” movement, the era brought a renewed sense of identity and pride.
A people newly delighted in liberty by federal decree yet tormented by popular scorn and legal indifference exemplified courage amid a rapidly changing national landscape during the 1940s. New citizens from Eastern Europe, the Orient and Latin America would call America home from New York City to Chicago, from San Francisco to Seattle, and from Louisiana and Texas and throughout the Southwest. As immigrants came to America, African Americans were also on the move, migrating from the South to better opportunities in a burgeoning new industrial age.
In June 1966, James Meredith began a solitary protest march for voting rights and an end to segregation. Four years earlier, Meredith became the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi. That year, President John F. Kennedy called in 320 U.S. marshals and authorized the use of regular Army troops so that Meredith could register at the renowned Oxford campus. Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett stood literally in the doorway of the registration building to prevent the historic exercise in school choice.
John Levy broke the mold of White management among African American Jazz musicians, and in doing so elevated the income and the status of many if not most Jazz artist.
A former bassist himself, he performed with such giants as Erroll Garner, Stuff Smith, Billie Holiday and Billy Taylor before joining the quintet of pianist George Shearing.
But Levy was drawn to the business side, and that proved to be where his genius lay.
