RIP Gil Scott-Heron: A Reflection on the Value of a Life
Not all great musicians are household names. Not all great poets are academics. Gil Scott-Heron was a great musician and poet that was neither. He died May 27, 2011. The Guardian wrote a stunning tribute to him that I won't attempt to duplicate here. Instead, I have a reflection of my own. He died on the day that would have been my mother's 75th birthday. I bring up my mother because they had a lot in common, that African American man from the streets of Chicago and the white woman from the privileged mansions of Belmont, Massachusetts – and they had gulfs separating them as well.
Both struggled with addictions that led (directly or indirectly) to early deaths. Both were incredibly talented individuals with a burning need to express that talent. Both knew early that they didn't fit in a world that wasn't built with them in mind. And both accepted that and fought it and powered on.
Gil Scott-Heron's talents lay in poetry – the strongly expressed political poetry of civil rights and anger and frustration, and in music – a Chicago and Tennessee rooted blues riff that grew into hip hop and rap's melodic predecessor. He saw his spoken word pieces like 'The Revolution Will Not be Televised' spawn an entire genre of music that gave a voice to young Black men in America. Common, Talib Kweli and Kanye West and
My mother, whose talent lay in the 'domestic arts', in sewing and decorating and knitting and crochet, saw all of her art outgrown and tossed on the bathroom floor, ripped and stained. She saw her greatest works of art, her four children, grow up, no longer dependent on her for guidance, and closed in her universe. She ran away from wealth and privilege and embraced the values and lifestyle of the working class and the artists, and never missed the privilege she rejected.
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