I didn't know who Gil Scott-Heron was until he died this weekend but i did know of his song 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' but only because i thought it was a great title. I'm not even sure i had ever heard it and after clicking through a host of links on You Tube it still didn't sound familiar.
His biggest impact on the British psyche was not with 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' but as the voice of the ad slogan, 'You know when you’ve been Tango-ed'.
In an interview with the Telegraph in 2010 Scott-Heron described his most famous work as 'satire' and felt that people misinterpreted his song as a militant message, 'I just think they made a mistake' he said.
I have always been quite indifferent to hip hop and rap music, it was always far too boastful and violent for my tastes and the artists with all the gold and macho posing just turned it into a genre that never appealed.
That said, there are a few rap songs i like from the early days, before it turned into a musical category that attracted the strutting egotists that seem to pollute it now.
Grandmaster Flash's 'The Message' was probably the best hip hop song i have heard, a warning against drugs and admiring the 'smugglers, scrambles, burglars, gamblers, pickpockets, peddlers and even panhandlers'.
Apart from that song, Fight for your right to party by the Beastie Boys and a couple of Run DMC songs (Walk This Way and It's Tricky) the rest i could, and have, easily ignored.
Not that i don't appreciate the effort that goes into creating that style of music, i just don't much care for the message behind most of the songs or the image of the performers as nor was the man lauded by today's rappers as their inspiration.
“That negativity stuff sells records' he said in 2010 in answer to a question on today's rap music, 'It appeals to the kind of people who are not interested in taking advantage of opportunities – the kind of people who have time to sit around and listen to that shit'.
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