GIL SCOTT-HERON: What Should We Expect from our Artists?

By BARCODE 2x

Gil Scott-Heron's new record I'm New Here arrived this year with a lot of expectations on it. The poet/singer/songwriter of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised had not recorded in nearly two decades, had done time in prison, had struggled with addiction, and the sudden return of this beloved artist was eagerly awaited by fans.

The record was released to very mixed reviews, calling it a fragmentary and disappointing offering by an artist with little left to say. Where was his political commentary? Scott-Heron has instead given us a personal and intimate account of his loneliness and isolation. What should we expect of our artists?

Artists in exile, whether they choose it or not, have been removed from society to protect them from us and to protect us from them. Pablo Neruda took political asylum in Italy. The Rolling Stones escaped to France owing hundreds of thousands in taxes. Gesualdo moved to Ferrar after killing his wife. Byron took to Switzerland amidst charges of incest, adultery, bisexuality, and countless other carnal sins. Roman Polanski has evaded sentencing for decades.

Artists in prison include Oscar Wilde, for gross indecency. Timothy Leary, for his corruptive influence. "Many good books have been written in prison," wrote Hunter S. Thompson. Scott-Heron's drug charges sent him to Riker's Island, and he has been gone, nowhere to be found. He could have been useful after 9/11. He could have been very useful to us, providing commentary on race and politics during Obama's election.

But he has been removed from it. He has not been living in the same world with us. Prisoners and exiles have limited access to the information that we have all come to rely upon. They are hard to reach, and they have trouble reaching us too. So what should we expect from our great artists, after they disappear?

Roman Polanksi's newest film Ghost Writer is considered one of his most personal films, plumbing the depths of a shamed public figure's psyche. The Rolling Stones made the great Exile on Main Street, suffering through addiction and run-ins with the law. Considered one of the great rock records, Exile was actually a collage of new and old recordings, making for a brilliant, yet rambling and sometimes shapeless listen. Similarly, Scott-Heron's I'm New Here is like a trip through his notebooks. This is a collection, a montage, a scrapbook of ideas and memories.

Snatches of conversations, sampled and set to music, as well as poems and just a few brief songs, all come together and don't really fit. The aesthetics of the tortured mind are often out of joint. And being in exile, the artist is not bound by any conventions. Many times, the most personal works of art are the least linear, the least conventional of the artist's body of work.

Gil Scott-Heron is a political figure and an artist, and keeping these responsibilities in balance is rather difficult. We should look back over his work and remember that many of his records bounce back and forth between the political and the emotional. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and the title track of Pieces of a Man are good examples of how this man has given us his inner thoughts and his revolutionary activist thought, simultaneously. These two songs on the same record are equally important, perhaps. One might stir revolutionary emotion, and the other might just make you a little sentimental. But in the long, complicated career of this tortured artist, all these emotions are important to document.

After all this time, maybe we need I'm New Here to get reaquainted with Gil Scott-Heron. Maybe it is more important to check in on him, make sure he's okay, and to welcome him back to the world. I sense that this man is getting warmed up again for more recordings, and they may be strange, cryptical, political. We should expect that from him after all this time. What we should not expect are answers to our burning questions. Political artists are not there to answer us, rather, they are sometimes there to help us phrase our questions. They help us look within.