Gil Scott-Heron RIP

I was sad to read about the death of one of my musical heroes – Gil Scott Heron, born 1 april 1949, died 27 May 2011 aged just 62. What a great man you were, poet, musician, author and activist.

He died in a NYC hospital after a flight from England. No cause of death has been officially released, but his body was ravaged from decades of alcohol and drug abuse, and in 2008 Scott-Heron said that he had been HIV positive for years. He was born in Chicago in 1949 and raised from age 2 by his grandmother in Tennessee after his parents separated. He seemed to predict his own death on INH, saying:

"Yeah the doctors don't know, but New York was killing me/ Bunch of doctors coming 'round, they don't know/ That New York is killing me/ Yeah, I need to go home and take it slow in Jackson, Tennessee."

After his parents split, Gil moved to Lincoln, Tennessee, to live with his grandmother, Lily Scott, a civil rights activist and musician whose influence on him was indelible. He recalled her in the track On Coming from a Broken Home on his 2010 comeback album I'm New Here as:

"absolutely not your mail-order, room-service, typecast black grandmother."

She bought him his first piano from a local undertaker's and introduced him to the work of the Harlem Renaissance novelist and jazz poet Langston Hughes, whose influence would resonate throughout his entire career.

As a result, he became increasingly politicised and made B Movie in 1981. It was a thunderous, nine-minute critique of Reaganomics, that stands out as the most representative track of this period. I love how he puts it:

"I remember what I said about Reagan... meant it. Acted like an actor... Hollyweird. Acted like a liberal. Acted like General Franco when he acted like governor of California, then he acted like a Republican. Then he acted like somebody was going to vote for him for president. And now we act like 26% of the registered voters is actually a mandate."

RIP you wise, beautiful man.