'You will not be able to stay home, brother..."
I took a break from the music blog here the last month or so. There's been a lot going on, naturally, and it felt a better time to listen and learn. To be clear, systemic racism in America remains a terrible hurdle to anything approaching true liberty and freedom in this country. If you're reading this and you don't already take the Black Lives Matter protests seriously, then I urge you to do so. If you feel powerless to aid, then remember that there are multiple opportunities to educate yourself, speak out, donate financially and vote for change.
I've attended a few socially-distanced protests with my family, but I've also been consuming the global protests through the media. One protest sign I noted read "Respect Black Lives Like You Respect Black Culture," which I thought was rather apt -- especially in consideration of music.
Black culture is a vital part of not only American music but the global music experience. Just think of the essential role that the Black experience plays in the emergence of blues, jazz, hip-hop, house music, rock, reggae, dub (and by extension electronic music as a whole) and myriad forms of world and new-age music -- just to rattle off a few obvious examples. Because of course Black musicians have contributed to numerous other genres and will continue to do so. Non-Black listeners who have ever benefited from any of these genres -- at a bare minimum -- owe Black culture and Black lives a return on that support.
Of course, none of this SHOULD come as a new and startling idea. But I do think it serves for many of us to remind ourselves that this wealth of music has very often spoken to the struggle for racial equality in this world. If you actually listened to N.W.A.'s Fuck Tha Police at any point in its 32-year history, you heard some of the same harsh realities of police brutality that are still with us today and are central to the ongoing protests. So, again, bare minimum here, but our music has been speaking to us on these topics for decades. The music we love. Respect Black lives like you respect Black culture. Listen to Black voices like you've listened to Black music.
Anyway, that's a long prelude to one such voice in music: the late, great Gil Scott-Heron (1949-2011).
Scott-Heron's most famous work is probably The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, which is also a prime example of the spoken word and jazz poetry dimensions of his work -- though his work in this dimension sometimes even has the feel of standup comedy as well. See his piece on "Jaws" for example.
I do love Scott-Heron's spoken word tracks. If this had been his only form of creative output, he'd still be a legend. But he also excelled as a vocalist and it's these tracks I connect with the most. Let's start with a track that features both: Black History/The World off 1982's Moving Target:
No Knock is another spoken word track that speaks to the same police brutality and militarized overreach policies that are still killing Black Americans -- and most infamously killed Breonna Taylor.
Scott-Heron put out great music his entire life -- including the haggard beauty of his final 2010 album I'm New Here -- but for pure excellence, it's hard to beat 1971's Pieces of a Man. The album kicks off with The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and then then proceeds to give us some of the artist's absolute greatest tracks, including Lady Day and John Coltrane, Home is Where the Hatred Is (which tackles addiction and trauma) and the title track itself. It's an excellent album and a great starting place if you're new to Scott-Heron's discography.
There's not need to stop there, though. The Klan off 1980's Real Eyes is a great track with a haunting message about the struggle for freedom against the forces of white supremacy.
And, again, 2010's I'm New Here is an excellent final album, one capping years of legal and personal problems due to addiction. It's a post-industrial blues album, featuring the haunting track Me and the Devil:
I'm New Here is excellent and his aged voice adds a new level of emotion to the tracks, but I far prefer the work of a younger, more vibrant Gil Scott-Heron. His work speaks to today's world as strongly as it ever did. Let's close out with more of that:
You can find Gil Scott-Heron's work wherever you get your music, just note that portions of his discography seem to be missing form major streaming platforms.
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