They don’t make them like Gil Scott-Heron anymore. Artists are scared to speak up these days. They see what happened to the Dixie Chicks, so they stay mum. It’s why a song like “Katrina Clap” on Mos Def’s Tru3 Magic is almost startling. There’s no such thing as public censuring via music artists anymore since artists rarely muster up the fortitude to touch on social matters these days - at least not with any venom. Some say that musicians should stick to playing music, but that’s not how it used to be.

The 60s and 70s were flooded with artists that had intelligent things to say about the status quo and did so through their music, whether it was Marvin asking, “What’s Goin’ On?” or Edwin Star posing his own question about “War”.

Gil was a profound pioneer of this era, even if he isn’t widely recognized as one. Maybe he was too sharp, too honest, too forthright. “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” (from Gil’s 1970 debut album, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox) might be the most vicious social critique ever. He stung the dude occupying the Oval Office with mean quips like, “The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.” Or he was skewering law enforcement and the hood mentality at the same time. “There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay. There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process. There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving for just the proper occasion.”

His catalogue is full of songs that address practically every social ill - from winos on the neighborhood corners (“Bottle”), to warning youth against drug experimentation (“Angel Dust”), to country-wide depression (“Winter In America”). And Gil was prescient about his songs, too. “Johannesburg” dropped in 1975, several years before popular artists decided to get together to battle apartheid. He released “B-Movie” in 1981, at the beginning of Ronald Reagan’s first presidential term, spending 12 minutes reaming the former actor. This was before crack hit the streets and the negative effects of Reagonomics came to real fruition. He begins the tune in the most sardonic tone with, “Mandate my a**.”

This was all done over music played by some of the baddest musicians of that day (including flutist Hubert Laws, pianist Brian Jackson, bassist Ron Carter and others) that sounded like an Earth Wind & Fire backdrop one moment or Return to Forever the next. Gil spat out his poetry with a cadence, command and venom that pre-dated all of your favorite rappers and sang it with the emotion and soul of a man that was just as pained as his audience. (His music is constantly sampled, from Kanye using “Home Is Where The Hatred Is” from Late Registration, or Mos Def employing the intro to “Legend In His Own Mind” from Black On Both Sides). Gil’s music was so inventive, diverse and unique that he really didn’t fit into any category back then. He wasn’t a funk, soul, R&B, rock or jazz artist and he was more than just a poet, pre-hip-hop.If he were to burst on the scene today, we’d be calling him a vanguard in the Bridge genre. He was like Malcolm X, spit-singing over some grooves Maze threw down with Gary Bartz’s sax solos to boot. Special.

In July of 1994, with Dre and Snoop and Wu-Tang and Biggie assaulting the airwaves, Gil released Spirit, which contained “Message To the Messengers”, a cautionary ode to rappers of that day. Leave it to Gil (45 years old at the time) to bear the weight and possess the inclination to address an issue that his peers were ignoring, cowering from or overreacting to. His tone was judgmental, but he spoke with a Legend’s past and the freedom of a pioneer. His was a voice to respect.

Young rappers, one more suggestion, before I get outta your way.

I appreciate the respect you give to me and what you've got to say.

I'm sayin' "Protect your community and spread that respect around."

Tell brothers and sisters they gotta calm that bullsh*t down,

Cuz we terrorizin' our old folks, and we've brought fear into our homes,

And they ain't gotta hang out with the senior citizens, Just tell 'em, "Dammit, leave the old folks alone!!!"

And we know who’s rippin' off the neighborhoods. Tell 'em that B.S. has gotsta stop.

Tell 'em you’re sorry that they can't handle it out there, but they gotta take the crime off the block!!!

And if they look at you like they think you insane,

Or start calling you "Scarecrow," thinkin' you ain't got no brain,

Or start tellin' folks that you've suddenly gone lame,

Or that white folks have suddenly co-opted your game,

Or worst yet, sayin' that you really don't know,

That's the same thing they said 'bout me a long time ago.

And if they tell folks that you've finally lost your nerve

That's the same thing they said 'bout us, when we said, "Johannesburg!!!"

It’s a tragedy, really. The fact that this man was a pseudo-hip-hop pioneer, an epic social critic and great bandleader has been lost in the shuffle. This man, in an ideal world, should be bronzed in one of those halls that commemorate great artists.