Gil Scott Heron

Classic Gil Scott Heron album. Twenty-one-year-old Gil Scott-Heron had yet to make the full transition from poet to musician when he recorded his provocative 1970 debut, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox. His words, though--his gleaming anger, his brutal honesty, and his shocking wit--fill in the soundtrack on their own, chattering and dancing like the simple but persuasive percussion that drives most of the album. Scott-Heron paints the black experience of his time in bold strokes--by turns ironic (Whitey on the Moon), critical (Brother), and solemn (appropriately enough on the quiet Paint It Black).