Month: November 2018
📑 The Unlikely Survival of the Godfather of Rap | The New Yorker
Alec Wilkinson (The New Yorker)All the dreams you show up in are not your own. ❧
— Gil Scott-Heron
📑 The Unlikely Survival of the Godfather of Rap | The New Yorker
Alec Wilkinson (The New Yorker)A philosopher might miss appointments, but so might someone with a propane torch in his apartment, even if he is a philosopher. ❧
— Gil Scott-Heron
📑 The Unlikely Survival of the Godfather of Rap | The New Yorker
Alec Wilkinson (The New Yorker)“My grandmother was dead serious,” he said one day, sitting on his couch. “Her sense of humor was a secret. ❧
— Gil Scott-Heron
📑 The Unlikely Survival of the Godfather of Rap | The New Yorker
Alec Wilkinson (The New Yorker)"The kids at the record company are very enthusiastic, and they have a lot of friends they have made, and they all want to have an interview, and the only problem is they’re asking the same things people asked me a long, long time ago, because that’s what they do when they’re starting—you ask questions you already know the answer to. I don’t want to disappoint them, but you can’t disappoint unless you have an appointment. They don’t know I only like to talk to people who have something to talk about other than me. Like everybody in New York, they know everything. How can you tell them anything?” ❧
— Gil Scott-Heron
📑 The Unlikely Survival of the Godfather of Rap | The New Yorker
Alec Wilkinson (The New Yorker)“It’s the death of the vertical,” he went on. “They have taken all this time to stand up straight so that they can say ‘I.’ They’re very proud of that. The way you get to know yourself is by the expressions on other people’s faces, because that’s the only thing that you can see, unless you carry a mirror about. But if you keep saying ‘I’ and they’re saying ‘I,’ you don’t get much out of it. They’re not really into you, or we, or they; they’re into I. That makes conversation slow. ❧
— Gil Scott-Heron
👓 New York Is Killing Me | The New Yorker
Alec Wilkinson (The New Yorker)Gil Scott-Heron is frequently called the “godfather of rap,” which is an epithet he doesn’t really care for. In 1968, when he was nineteen, he wrote a satirical spoken-word piece called “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” It was released on a very small label in 1970 and was probably heard of more than heard, but it had a following. It is the species of classic that sounds as subversive and intelligent now as it did when it was new, even though some of the references—Spiro Agnew, Natalie Wood, Roy Wilkins, Hooterville—have become dated. By the time Scott-Heron was twenty-three, he had published two novels and a book of poems and recorded three albums, each of which prospered modestly, but “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” made him famous.
👓 Lush life | Hub | Johns Hopkins University
Jazz poet Gil Scott-Heron's posthumously published memoir, The Last Holiday, is an improvisational snapshot of a fascinating life.
🎵 I’m New Here by Gil Scott-Heron (XL, 2010)
I'm New Here is the 13th and final studio album by American vocalist and pianist Gil Scott-Heron. It was released on February 8, 2010, by XL Recordings and was his first release of original music in 16 years, following a period of personal and legal troubles with drug addiction.
The record was produced by XL owner Richard Russell, who was influenced by the 2009 self-titled debut album of English band the xx.[1] I'm New Here is a post-industrial blues album, with spoken word folk songs and trip hop interludes.
I'm New Here received positive reviews from most critics and debuted at number 181 on the US Billboard 200, selling 3,700 copies in its first week. It was promoted with the single "Me and the Devil", an adaptation of blues musician Robert Johnson's "Me and the Devil Blues" (1937). A remix of the album, titled We're New Here, was produced by the xx's Jamie xx and released by XL in 2011.
You can’t spend a chunk of the afternoon reading about Gil Scott-Heron without jumping into his work.
I liked the nod of the Kanye West sampling of Flashing Lights on the song On Coming from a Broken Home as a reverse homage to a generation of hip hop artists and rappers sampling Scott-Heron.
🎧 Sinnerman – Live In New York/1965 | Nina Simone
"Sinner Man" or "Sinnerman" is an African American traditional spiritual song that has been recorded by a number of performers and has been incorporated in many other of the media and arts. The lyrics describe a sinner attempting to hide from divine justice on Judgment Day. It was recorded in the 1950s by Les Baxter, the Swan Silvertones, the Weavers and others, before Nina Simone recorded an extended version in 1965.
Spent a few minutes late this afternoon to update the CSS on my website to hide the automatic titles given to annotation and highlight posts. Also modified these slightly to give the highlighted/quoted portion of other sites a highlighter-yellow color.
👓 White House suspends press access for CNN’s Jim Acosta | NY Post
The White House suspended press access for Jim Acosta on Wednesday after the CNN reporter had a tense exchange with President Trump during a press conference. Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders…
An incendiary article that leaves some details out for salacious effect. Having seen a portion of the press conference this morning, there’s a bit to be desired in this reporting that does a bit of “he said, she said” without giving a completely accurate picture of the story.
👓 Jeff Sessions out as attorney general | CNN
President Donald Trump on Wednesday fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Matthew Whitaker will take over as acting attorney general.
👓 What we know about Matthew Whitaker, man who replaces Jeff Sessions | ABC News
Matthew Whitaker was appointed has been appointed acting U.S. Attorney General.