Pieces Of A Man, Pieces Of Ourselves - Chris "Preach" Smith

Sometimes, when an artist gives out pieces of themselves, you have to understand
that it’s not always just pieces of themselves, but of you as well. Pieces that you didn’t
know fit within your life.

It’s something I’ve learned time and time again, but one of the key providers of that
lesson for me and many others around the globe was the late, great Gil Scott Heron.
Today would have been his 64th birthday. And while getting ready to write this, it 
dawned on me how his artistry inserted itself into my life like puzzle pieces I needed.
One of my earliest childhood memories was first hearing ‘The Bottle’ while sitting in
the expanse of the back seat of my dad’s baby blue Cadillac Sedan De Ville coasting
on the way up to visit relatives up by Gun Hill Road in The Bronx. I found out then 
that it was one of my mom’s favorite songs. Getting into my teen years, I not only 
dove into hip-hop further but jazz and soul as well to compose the soundtrack of that
time. ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ was the gem of his 1970 debut album,
Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, but the album on a whole for its time was monumental.
And even now, it still blows the truth. I finally heard the album in full thanks to one
dude in my junior year of high school who was a jazz head and made me a tape of
it. It was great music, but I wasn’t fully ready for the seeds it was trying to plant.

College became the place where I saw those seeds for what they were. I took an 
introduction to jazz course, and one of the selections the professor chose to play was
from Gil. It turned out to be ‘Beginnings’, from his third album with Brian Jackson
as a main feautre & his sixth album overall, From South Africa To South Carolina.
Hearing that song put me on the road to being put together the way I needed to be,
I still rememberall of us sitting in a silent cloud a few minutes after hearing that track.
I wound up copping that CD at a record store right down the block from Cafe Reggio
in Greenwich Village soon after on one of my rambles there not knowing it was the
first time it was ever released in the format. Working in the library in those years, I
also stumbled upon his two published novels, The Vulture and The Nigger Factory,
written during a break from his studies at Lincoln University. I bugged out because 
my dream was to be a successful, published writer and it was almost like this brother
was giving me a blueprint! I devoured them along with works by Audre Lorde and 
Bob Kaufman and others, and began to hone my poetry even more. I started doing 
shows, hitting open mics. All the while slowly digesting all of Gil’s discography however
I could, and seeing just how his work paved the way for hip-hop to even BE. He was
called the ‘Godfather Of Rap’, and to some degree he was. Because his music was a
cornerstone of the culture; how many MCs have you heard quote from The Revolution
Will Not Be Televised’? ‘We Almost Lost Detroit’ can be heard in FIVE songs alone, from
Grand Puba’s ‘Keep On’, Black Star’s ‘Brown Skin Lady’ and Common’s ‘The People’ 
to name most of them. Kanye West was so inspired by Gil in his production that it 
led to the two working together on ‘Who Will Survive In America?’ from West’s My
Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. And Gil sampled Kanye for his last album, I’m New
Here. Another link to the hip-hop world that hit home for me? Mr.Cheeks of the Lost
Boyz out of Southside, Jamaica, Queens is his nephew. Part of the reason I bought
Blackalicious’ second album, Blazing Arrow, was because of Gil’s turn on ‘First In Flight.’


As my life moved on, I began to see all of the pieces Gil Scott-Heron gave me merge
and take the form of a truth he lived as only he could. I was pleased to find out that
his father, Gil ‘The Black Arrow’ Heron was not only the first Black player for the
Glasgow Celtic soccer team of Scotland, he was also Jamaican. Yardies know we are
quick to claim ANYBODY. Imagine my family’s glee. What also rung with me was
that he and his son didn’t meet again until Scott-Heron was 26. And where did his
dad spend his last years? Detroit, Michigan. As I grew, his music took on fuller meaning
even as his life seemed to fray at the seams. There were a few years where if you 
heard Gil’s name, you got sighs and ‘if onlys’. Gil fell into drugs, and even did jail
time. In some respects, you have to understand that those moments mirrored those
by others who were powerful voices for the people back in the 60’s and 70’s like
James Brown for example. When times change and you see things aren’t moving as
fast for you or the people, it eats at you. The art isn’t enough to ease the pain, and
you look for other ways. Gil gave a lot of himself to us, because he was us. And we 
knew it. I recall the standing ovation he got when Yaasin Bey brought him onstage
at his Carnegie Hall concert in 2009. When he passed, I remember the absolute shock.
Not just because it was sudden, it was also because he was back in the forefront, for a
new generation to get pieces of themselves through his music. Today, on his birthday,
I hope that others take the time to find them in his music and hip-hop like me and 
many others did.