I first encountered the late great Gil Scott-Heron in a lonely movie theater on a cold Saturday night in El Paso, TX. I was trying to lose myself in what was quickly becoming one of my favourite films, The Hurricane, as this motherfucker of a song came on. If my memory serves me well, it was the musical accompaniment to a boxing scene, and it seemed that Denzel Washington, in the role of the fierce Reuben "Hurricane" Carter moved with grace and precision, in perfect time with this revolutionary, proto-hip hop song. He was dancing and destroying, and he moved as only the best fighters do, like a dancer, and a poet, a sex machine, and a killer, all to a groooooove.
I didn't give a shit if the song was a "black" thing. It had an indestructible and infectious rhythm, the kind I was beginning to discover in Sly, Miles, and Band Of Gypsies-era Hendrix. Lyrically, it attacked many of the same things I hated about the culture in which I lived, so black or white, it speaking to me and other punk rockers and bebopers.
The film also hipped me to Dylan's great song about Reuben Carter, and helped me through a rotten break up, but that's another story.
Rest In Peace, Gil Scott-Heron, poet, OG hip hop revolutionary.
I didn't give a shit if the song was a "black" thing. It had an indestructible and infectious rhythm, the kind I was beginning to discover in Sly, Miles, and Band Of Gypsies-era Hendrix. Lyrically, it attacked many of the same things I hated about the culture in which I lived, so black or white, it speaking to me and other punk rockers and bebopers.
The film also hipped me to Dylan's great song about Reuben Carter, and helped me through a rotten break up, but that's another story.
Rest In Peace, Gil Scott-Heron, poet, OG hip hop revolutionary.
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
solus:
I spent the first 24 years of my life in El Paso. It was a crowded theater, which is the loneliest kind. Well, I was lonely, and not the theater, but you get the drift.
viking:
awesome song