One of the most important progenitors of rap music, Gil Scott-Heron's aggressive, no-nonsense street poetry inspired a legion of intelligent rappers while his engaging songwriting skills placed him square in the R&B charts later in his career, backed by increasingly contemporary production courtesy of Malcolm Cecil and Nile Rodgers (of Chic).Disregard the understated title, "Small Talk at 125th and Lenox" was a volcanic upheaval of intellectualism and social critique, recorded live in a New York nightclub with only bongos and conga to back the street poet. Here Scott-Heron introduced some of his most biting material, including the landmark "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" as well as his single most polemical moment: the angry race warning "Enough."
Still, he balances the tone and mood well, ranging from direct broadsides to clever satire. He introduces "Whitey on the Moon" with a bemused air ("wanting to give credit where credit is due"), then launches into a diatribe concerning living conditions for the neglected on earth while those racing to the moon receive millions of taxpayer dollars. On "Evolution (And Flashback)," Scott-Heron laments the setbacks of the civil rights movement and provides a capsule history of his race, ending sharply with these words: "In 1960, I was a negro, and then Malcolm came along/Yes, but some nigger shot Malcolm down, though the bitter truth lives on/Well, now I am a black man, and though I still go second class/Whereas once I wanted the white man's love, now he can kiss my ass." The only sour note comes on a brush with homophobia, "The Subject Was Faggots."
Tracklist:
01. Intro
02. The Revolution will not be televised
03. Omen
04. Brother
05. Comment #1
06. Small Talk At 125th And Lenox
07. The Subject Was Faggots
08. Evolution (And Flashback)
09. Plastic Pattern People
10. Whitey On The Moon
11. The Vulture
12. Enough
13. Paint It Black
14. Everyday
Gil Scott-Heron - Small Talk At 125th & Lenox Ave
(192 kbps, front cover included)
2 Kommentare:
The album was recorded in studio with an audience of friends not in a club. There is no "sour note" or "brush with homophobia", what a ridiculous comment!
"Recording sessions for the album were originally said to have taken place live at a New York nightclub located on the corner of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue,[4] but liner notes included in the 2012 box set The Revolution Begins: The Flying Dutchman Masters, Scott-Heron himself insists that a small audience was brought to 'the studio' and seated on 'folding chairs'." - wikipedia
"Scott-Heron was nobody's idea of a saint. "The Subject Was Faggots" is a nasty, mean-spirited description of a gay ball (in which he recalls, with distaste, seeing "Misses and miseries and miscellaneous misfits" who are "giggling and grinning and prancing and shit"), while "Enough" imagines the rape of white women as a form of reparation for slavery." - Simon Price, 29 May 2011 Independent,
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