Thumbnails Previous Image Next Image
GIL SCOTT-HERON: 1949-2011 -- Gil Scott-Heron, a pioneer in a style of musical spoken word that evolved into rap, died on May 27 at St. Luke's Hospital in Manhattan. He was 62. Perhaps Scott-Heron's more lasting legacy, though, lies in his lifelong insistence that music has to say something and mean something. His breakthrough record, 'Pieces of a Man' in 1971, included his best-known work, 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,' which attacked the superficiality of mass media and suggested the real stories were happening below its radar.