Gil Scott-Heron – I’m New Here

Gil Scott-Heron was a proto-rap pioneer of the early 1970s, a beat poet with a penchant for bongo drums and weed. He was an artist with more influence than record sales and even with that his influence wasn’t that great (his only song that you may recognise is The Revolution Will Not Be Televised). I’m New Here was Scott-Heron’s come back album of sorts after years in the musical wilderness surviving drug problems and imprisonment. It finds him reflecting on his early life, his childhood in Tennessee and his grandmother who raised him. The sound of the album reminded me of the Rick Rubin produced final albums of Johnny Cash albeit with a more electro feel. It also shares those albums' poignancy considering Scott-Heron passed away last year. The standout tracks are Me And The Devil on which he sounds like a futuristic black Tom Waits and New York Is Killing Me with its simple hand clapped beat…9/10