Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces of a Man By Marcus Baram 320 pp. St. Martin's Press $26.99
Like pretty much every other musical genre, rap and hip-hop have many musical "fathers," with various groups and individuals claiming full (or partial) paternity. DJ Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Melle Mel, Afrika Bambaataa, and the Sugar Hill Gang are often listed on the birth certificate.
But others point to Gil Scott-Heron as the Baby Daddy, as the R&B/soul/jazz vocalist, spoken-word poet, journalist and novelist's albums of the '70s featured a lot of sonic themes and rhythms that would find their way into rap and hip-hop. Along with decidedly familiar themes and lyrics of black empowerment, disenfranchisement and culture.
Pieces of a Man tells the roller-coaster life and music journey of a fresh-voiced musical pioneer and cultural soldier who made a huge impact with his early work. Only then to fritter away much of the last few decades of his life in the grip of cocaine and crack addiction, erratic behavior and concert no-shows before dying in 2011 at the age of 62.
Writing and exploring music since he was a child, Scott-Heron broke actual barriers in educational integration. And his written, sung and spoken polemics made him a well-known figure on the campuses while he attended Lincoln and then Johns Hopkins University.
He then went on to record a series of albums that -- while not big commercial successes -- found wide audiences on underground radio and college stages. Early work "Whitey on the Moon" contrasted the achievement of white Americans in reaching the stars, while blacks lived in ghetto conditions down on earth.
His most famous work, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," is a cultural touchstone whose title at least has passed into general pop consumption. It's been used by headline writers and journalists who have never actually heard the incendiary track about an African-American uprising.
And -- like Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." -- it has also been interpreted in ways far removed from the author's original intention. An author whom record company executive Clive Davis once dubbed "The Black Bob Dylan" -- much to said author's distaste.
Scott-Heron maintained that the song's true meaning was that any "revolution" had to first start in the mind, and thus could not be captured, recorded or rewatched, rather than the more literal translation many listeners took away.
Other well-known sociopolitical works included "The Bottle," "Johannesburg," "The Needle's Eye," "The Vulture" and "Save the Children." Most directly addressed -- and in strong language -- the ups and downs (often downs) of the black urban experience and racism.
