The revolution will not be televised,Musician Gil Scott-Heron, who helped lay the groundwork for rap by fusing minimalistic percussion, political expression and spoken-word poetry on songs such as "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,The revolution will not be televiseddied Friday at age 62.
I remember hearing his stuff first while I was still in high-school and it resonated with me then in a political as well as artistic way. Forty years later I still listen to it for the nostalgia and for the power of his expression. The Revolution Will Not be Televised is his most famous work, but others such as Whitey on the Moon and Small Talk at 125th and Lenox are more powerful. Scot-Heron knew that the black community, as much as he felt it legitimate to blame whitey for its troubles, also didn’t do themselves any favors by their internal disorganization and moral decline. He might have been a forerunner of hip-hop, but he was no misogynist and he was a true poet.
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