Gil Scott-Heron T-shirt

Gil Scott Heron (1949 – 2011)

Gil Scott Heron was born in Chicago, USA, his mother Bobbie Scott was an opera singer, his father Gil Heron was a Jamaican footballer who in the 1950s became the first black man to play for Celtic Football Club in Glasgow, Scotland.

Gil Scott heron was a musician and author, known for his work as a spoken-word performer in the 1970s and 80s. His long-term collaboration with the musician Brian Jackson was a fusion of Jazz, blues, and soul as well as lyrical content that reflected the social and political issues of the time. His own term for himself was ‘bluesologist’. His poem ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ delivered over a jazz-soul beat is considered a major influence on hip hop music.

His music preceded the genres of hip hop and neo soul, and his style of delivery is considered to be a major influence and progenitor of rap music.

Gil Scott Heron received a number of posthumous awards after his death including Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, accepted into the National Museum of African American History and Culture and inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.