Gil Scott-Heron

Add Date: February 9

Artist: Gil Scott-Heron

Album: I'm New Here

Label: XL

Genre: Hip hop, spoken word, rock

Comments: From the label: "Without doubt one of the most important voices in American music, Gil Scott-Heron has been called a Vietnam-era Langston Hughes, a proto-rap pioneer, and--offensively but not inaccurately--the black Bob Dylan, someone whose unfailingly sharp and ironic eye spared neither Black Power phonies or scheming presidents. In 1971 he laid out the blueprint for the whole hip hop genre with... The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, on which the then-23-year-old poetically dismantled the entire '70s culture...

"I'm New Here, Scott-Heron's first album in 16 years, finds the artist sounding as vital as ever; it is a record that reveals something unexpected at every turn... Alongside his I'm New Here collaborator--producer and XL Recordings head Richard Russell--Scott-Heron has made an album that eschews the cozy arrangements and retrospective leanings one might expect from an artist over 40 years into his career...

"I'm New Here mixes Scott-Heron's reflections on his life and this moment with Russell's flickering electronic soundscapes, which at various times conjure up thoughts of Burial and The xx, as well as a host of hip-hop influenced sounds (including the sample of Kanye's 'Flashing Lights' that grounds the two-part 'On Coming From a Broken Home'). Occasionally the electronics are stripped right back--as they are on the beautiful, heartfelt 'I'll Take Care of You,' or the title track, a Smog cover, where Scott-Heron's weathered baritone completely owns Bill Callahan's lyrics, transforming them with the force of his own history."