The life Gil Scott-Herone

The life Gil Scott-Herone o can be divided into two phases. In the first half ranging from his early adulthood to mid-30s, Gil was a prolific, articulate, eloquent, charismatic and gifted artist who's fondly remembered as the "godfather of rap". During this time, his life as an Afro-renaissance artists was marked by stardom in the arena of poetry, music, novels, lyrics and political activism. However, it is his career as a recording artists that made his name forever ingrained in the sand of history. Within a relatively short period of time, he managed to compile a body of high-quality classic work including the famous "Revolutions Will Not Be Televised". He also compiled an all-time great souls-jazz chefs-d'oeuvre such as "Johannesburg", "The Bottle" and "Lady Day & John Coltrane". Gil life of activism prompted him to influence the "Me Generation" to adopt the altruistic values of the "We Generation". His critique of the political events of the time including nuclear armament, Watergate Scandal, Apartheid in South Africa, the controversial Vietnam War and the ever controversial issue of racial discrimination in America made him a celebrated music icon among the radical political groups including the Black Power Movement. However, Gil's second phase of life was artistically disappointing as he battled a chronic and disastrous drug addiction. From about 1985, Gil became shadow of his former self. Unlike the vibrant and charismatic artists of the yesteryears, the Gil of the mid-eighties inwards was a symbol of cocaine abuse and problems with the law. He serial arrests and jail-time coupled with the sole lackluster and mediocre album he released in 1994 seemed the end of his career as a music icon. His latter legacy as a beleaguered narcotic abuser was indeed a striking contrast with the captivating icon his fans and admirers had come to love. Born in Chicago on a rather inauspicious day in April Fools' Day of 1949, Gil grew up in his grandmother's house in Jackson. At Chicago, Gil had first encountered the revolutionary tide manifest in the 1960s. His grandmother orientated her to the realities of the day including the Jim Crow regime and the richness of the black history, culture and identity. This made the young Gil develop a taste for change and revolution. He also became one of the handful young students to be integrated in a segregated local school. However, his grandmother did not live long and the 12-year old Gil had to relocate to his mother's place in New York where he enrolled for another school in the Bronx. However, his experience at the Lincoln University was radically eventful as it shaped his life philosophy as an activist for change. Gil was following in the footsteps of his great admirer, Langston Hughes. It was at this point in his life that he developed an interest for the Black Arts Movement. At Lincoln, he also took upon it himself to change the healthcare system including the restocking of the local pharmacy and purchase and equipment of an ambulance service. After nearly having the school-doctor lynched by other students for medical negligence emanating from an asthmatic student who had died because of being unattended, Gil realized how much impact his radical influence could have and how much a seemingly benign situation could spiral out of control quickly. This served to convince him to adopt peaceful methods of activism. It is also at Lincoln that Gil met Brian Jackson who would become his career-long partner-in-crime and together they started a large band christened "Black & Blues" which comprised of about 9 artists. However, the group disbanded but Jackson remained on Gil's side as he ventured on a solo career. This would prove a highly productive duet as Jackson, who was a renowned singer and arranger in his own right as well as a gifted flautist and jazz pianist, brought his artistic skills onboard to enhance Gil's career. Indeed, Gil himself later conceded that the influence of Jackson on his career had often being downplayed or overlooked especially in the realm of arranging words and making songs from poems. In these songs, poems and writings, Gil ventured into a variety of topics including romance, lifestyle, kids, race question and certainty politics of the day. However, it was not until he compiled the "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" that he became a national icon among the radical American-American pressure groups. The title itself was immediately borrowed up by the black movement as a kind of a rallying slogan, warning phrase or a premonition. The phrase seemed to criticize white Americans who preferred to hide their faces in the television instead of picking up sides and standing up for justice. In this poem, Gil scolded the media for being a part of the problem as a shaper of the national opinion, it had instead glorified white America at the expense of other races. What made the poem particularly influential among the black power activists is that it promotes and propagates a leftist radical ideology which is substantially opposed to the mainstream views aired by the media. That is why black activist took the title of the song to mean that their own imminent revolution would not find favor with the mainstream society and certainly not the media and hence will not media coverage. However, Gil himself would in future lament the extension, radicalization and politicization of his intended message by black power activists. He argued that his message had been misunderstood. But the lyrics of the song seem to betray his self-professed leftist moderation. They are irreconcilably radical considering that the prods his listeners to rise up for a revolution arguing that time is ripe for a revolutionary change. He asserts that evasive and ignorant Americans would have nowhere to hide when the revolution beckons. They would not be able to hide themselves behind their TVs because that is not the theatre of the imminent revolution. Rather, the forthcoming war and wave of change would take place in the streets and homes and therefore there was nowhere to hide for those busy tuning to their Saturday shows. Additionally, Gil who views big companies and the governments as enemies of the downtrodden people asserts these corporations or even the government itself would not have the power or even the opportunity to control the pace or the course of the beckoning revolution. His radicalism is manifest when he calls out the president and other federal officials by name and mocks them. More specifically, Gil tells his listeners that the media will not air the image of Nixon leading the revolution. Neither will it make those leading it appealing to those opposing or what he calls according one's mouth a sexual appeal. Moreover, Gil argues that the beckoning change would not lead to appearance of slimness since it would be aired by the media in the first place. He asserts that the current content aired on television would become useless and irrelevant when black people rise in rebellion to overthrow the white-dominated culture. Of note, Gil criticizes the American people for their obsession with non-priority issues like sex and drugs while the more important personal and grave issues that affected their black compatriots remained under-reported and hence unaddressed. Gil later explained that he was trying to poke his desirably white majority audience to take a moment and ponder about the racial injustices committed against his fellow black community. However, Gil didn't think that White America had the capacity or the competence to under the plight of African-American. He was contemptuous of the role played by white liberal activist movements like the SDS which called for a more inclusive and democratic American society thus airing the same grievances as the African-American pressure groups. Gil dismissed these rather naïve white liberals as little better than busy-bodies and joyriders who thought protestation was some sort of a weekend hobby to partake in. He in particular criticized the young white liberal students for only being interested in African-American for only the four years they were in college and forgetting about the whole issue soon afterwards. He argued that the black plight especially in regard to inequality and discrimination was a way too complex to be understood in such a small period especially by a racial outsider since it was a deeply-entrenched issue. More importantly, as aforementioned, Gil ridiculed white individuals for being drunk with the status quo and for assuming that the rather irrelevant issues they were protesting about were a priority to the black community. In particular, he dismissed kind of protests he deemed as unnecessary and irrelevant including the white protests that called for the legalization of some drugs and relaxation of sexual regulations. He argued that the black community had more legitimate, more pressing and graver issues affecting them than this white hogwash and that these black issues should be the prime focus of the white community not drugs or sex. But as already indicated, he remained contemptuous of the idea that white individuals could take on the fight on behalf of African-Americans. He argued that white boys did not have the moral authority to do so considering the still-fresh memories of slavery and Jim Crow. In conclusion, Gil was as much of radical black activist as Malcom X was. But it is interesting that in his revolutionary masterpiece, he cautions his audience not to generalize Malcom as well as Cleaver as the symbols of the struggle for the black rights. He argued that these icons were agitating for the very specific issues and engaging in specialized battles in their agitation and therefore their efforts should not be generalized or collectivized as to be synonymous with the entire black cause. He argued that the revolution was bigger than Malcom or Cleaver and that to equate it with these personalities would be to dwarf not only the struggle but also diminish the immense roles played by these activists in their specialized battles. However, this does not mean that Gil downplays the importance of the black icons. Rather he holds them in high-esteem but is seemingly reluctant to be entrapped in the cult of personality. He resists attempts to synonymize an entire struggle and revolution with a single or a couple of individuals.