I'm New Here (2010) / We're New Here (2011)
Last Friday, the “Godfather of Hip-Hop,” Gil Scott-Heron passed away at the age of 62. His music and poetry, often one in the same, touched more people and influenced more art and music than most realize. He was a trailblazer, an egotist, a crack addict, a visionary, a novelist, a poet, an activist, a lover, a fighter, and an inspiration. He will be dearly missed. In 2010, he released his first album in 16 years, I’m New Here. A year later, Jamie xx, producer of The xx, released in collaboration with Scott-Heron, We’re New Here. To pay our respects, Sarah and I dug into both albums and got maybe a bit too talkative!
Brandon: “Pop music doesn’t necessarily have to be shit.” So said Gil Scott-Heron in reference to his 1974 song “The Bottle” which reached #15 on the Billboard R&B singles chart.
On Friday, May 27th, 2011, Gil Scott-Heron passed away at the age of 62 at New York City’s St. Luke’s Hospital.
His 1971 album, Pieces of a Man, was one of the first LPs I ever bought after getting my first pair of turntables because I wanted to own and spin “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” which, unbeknownst to me at the time, actually first appeared on his 1970 debut album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox. His style of poetry and song were the predecessors of hip-hop. In fact, it’s hard to believe that hip-hop as it exists now would exist without Gil’s influence.
He was the coolest and the baddest. He produced his first collection of poetry at the age of 13. Published his first novel, The Vulture at the age of 20 after one year at Lincoln University, and though he never received an undergraduate degree from Lincoln, he still earned a Masters in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins University in 1972. (Who does that? Can you still get graduate degrees without undergraduate degrees?)
He also spent time in and out of jail for cocaine and probation violations. And in 2008, he disclosed in a New York Magazine interview that he’d been HIV positive for several years.
I’m sorry, I know this discussion isn’t about eulogizing the man, but it’s impossible to listen to I’m New Here without taking into account who the man was.
No, let me back up. It’s not impossible. You don’t need to know who Gil Scott-Heron was in order to appreciate his album as an artifact of a man, or even a character, who’s seen more than most and lived to tell about it. It can be read as a portrait of a man who’s been given the liberty and gift of insight to look back on his life and take stock of what’s become of it; what’s become of him. On “I’m New Here,” he says – and really, throw a dart, because the man doesn’t say things that aren’t quotable – he says, “I did not become someone different / that I did not want to be.” But see, he is different. We all are. Tomorrow, I’ll be different than I was today, because I’ll be living with an added day of experience, of practice.
Gil’s had a lot of practice. And at 61, he was still “new.” “Turn around,” he said, “You may come full circle. And be new here. Again.”
A year ago, when I first listened to the album, I was struck, as I think many were, by both its beauty and its darkness. Perhaps, more accurately, by the beauty in its darkness. It starts and ends with a meditation on his upbringing, on his family, and the passing of his grandmother, Lily Scott, with “On Coming from a Broken Home parts 1 & 2.” And between these tracks lies an album of thoughtful introspection, a tallying up of the bill to get read to pay the Reaper. He even says, on the interlude “Being Blessed,” “If you’ve got to pay for things that you’ve done wrong, uh, I got a big bill coming, at the end of the day.”
I wonder if he knew how close the end of the day was. I guess when you’re 60 and HIV positive, the end of the day is around every corner.
But then, and I’ll leave you to talk more about this, came the xx’s producer Jamie Smith (aka Jamie xx) who, with the help of session tapes and outtakes and through hand-written correspondence with Gil, delivered We’re New Here almost exactly one year after the release of I’m New Here. It might be considered a remix album, but it’s almost more of a recontextualization. And the loneliness of I’m New Here seems at least mitigated, if not occasionally totally eliminated, on We’re New Here. I mean, just look at that title. First person plural, amirite? (Don’t answer that. That’s a rhetorical question. Obviously.)
Sarah: I resisted writing this post with you. As you know, I started taking an anti-depressant about a month ago and feel totally disconnected from music. I can’t say that it’s a direct result of the medication (after all, it’s unclear whether or not they have an effect greater than that of a placebo), but I’d say there’s probably a correlation. In my life, music is one of my greatest emotional investments; it brings me to and sees me through highs and lows. It was my go-to, after the best and worst days, the most boring work hours, and longest car rides. And then I hit a “rough patch” (in this case, a euphemism for a lot of anxiety with a smattering of depression) and the one part of my life that entirely dropped off was music. I’m still shocked. It’s foreign not to feel compelled to pursue new albums, spend all of my free moments with headphones on, and feel inspired to react in some way to those auditory stimulants.
That said, I can’t get away from the title track on Scott-Heron’s album. When I listen to the song now, I’m comforted by the optimism in his words: “No matter how far wrong you’ve gone, you can always turn around.” If Gil Scott-Heron can see the glass is half full then, well, I probably can too. Jamie Smith’s remix of the song seems to highlight all of the words that I missed in the original. It’s less about renewal and self-sufficiency, and more focused on the playfulness of Scott-Heron’s lyrics. We never hear the “turn around” refrain, but Smith lifts the coy lines into the spotlight: “She said I had an ego on me the size of Texas / Well, I’m new here and I forget / Does that mean big or small?” I think it’s an appropriate way to kick off We’re New Here; this track is Smith nudging us with his elbow, saying “hey, you probably know this album pretty well. Hang on, we’re going to have some more fun with it.”
And that, I think is the real crux of the album. Fun. Where I’m New Here was introspective and reverent, We’re New Here is fun, enjoyable, even danceable. There’s even a track, one of a few on We’re New Here, that doesn’t exist on I’m New Here called “Jazz Interlude” where, in an outtake from the I’m New Here sessions, Gil talks about how jazz was always just music for people to dance to, that Prince may be one of the greatest jazz musicians to ever live. So while I’m New Here is a reverential contemplation of a life lived, We’re New Here is a celebration of that life, shared with a community. The sample of Gloria Gaynor’s “Casanova Brown” that Jamie stretches and bends like play-dough on the title track repeats, “I met him at a party / He said the sweetest things.” As long as Jamie is running the show, crowding Gil’s songs with samples and house and dub beats, loneliness isn’t an option. I’m not new. We’re new. Now where’s the party?
Brandon: I love that you brought up the samples, which are all over We’re Not Here and which forced me to go to Wikipedia (love ya, Wikipedia. xoxo) to find out what these samples were. And, almost without fail, the samples work beautifully in context. You mentioned the Gaynor sample on “We’re New Here.” I’d also like to pay my respects to the Baby Washington sample from “That’s How Heartaches are Made”* on “The Crutch,” which may be the only song that I feel was genuinely improved upon from its original incantation.
You know, I feel like the albums are of two different time periods. Ironically, however, Gil’s I’m New Here feels like it’s coming from somewhere in a distant post-apocalyptic future, its beats heavy and electronic, like someone beating on a robotic mainframe with a rubber mallet in the year 2245. It’s scary and ominous, yet still organic. It feels of the future, rather than portending to be in the future. We’re New Here, on the other hand, feels very much of the present, though it has all the trappings of what comes to mind when one thinks of the future: electronic and techno textures, dub samples, synths from a spaceship. Really, it’s about as futuristic as Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the future as imagined from the 70s, appropriate considering the time period of most of the samples he used. And I think it might be the lesser album because of it.
But, good god, are there some great songs on We’re New Here. “The Crutch,” as I mentioned. While, I like the original version of “Running” better, it’s hard to argue with that kick ass coda. And “Home” and “My Cloud” which don’t appear on I’m New Here are maybe two of my three favorite songs on We’re New Here, especially the latter, which is such a beautiful R&B crooner, harkening back to his mid 70s output, that it obviously had no place on the lonely and desolate I’m New Here.
What do you think of We’re New Here? Improvement or downgrade?
*[Thank you, Wikipedia.]
Sarah: I truly like both albums. I think what’s particularly interesting about We’re New Here is that sometimes it feels like an even-balanced collaboration, while some songs feel like total creations of Jamie Smith’s. I have to admit, the further a song moves away from Gil’s design, the less I tend to enjoy the song. “Ur Soul and Mine” feels almost exclusively Jamie’s, Gil’s voice being used as little more than a sample throughout the duration of this techno/dub derivation. Honestly, without the “soul” of Gil in the track, it felt hollow and a little boring.
I initially felt the same way about “NY Is Killing Me,” until I realized that the little throwaway session sketch of Gil on the piano in the preceding track, “Piano Player” served as the melodic cornerstone for the electronic “NY Is Killing Me.” I loved the dark sound of Gil’s keys in “Piano Player,” and thought the piece as sinister as anything on I’m New Here, but when it finally hit me that Jamie took what Gil was playing and turned it into this frightening electronic dub track, I totally changed my mind about the song. Now I kind of love it. I just need more Gil in my life, I guess.
And then there’s “I’ll Take Care of U,” which I know you want to talk about.
Brandon: Thank you! I do want to talk about “I’ll Take Care of U.” I think it may be my favorite track on both albums.
On I’m New Here, the track is quiet, bare, and understated. Gil sounds shockingly like Franks Wild Years era Tom Waits, with his gravelly, blues-inflected voice. And when he shovels from his voice the gravel buried in his soul to coo (and really I could quote the whole song here), “I’ve loved and I lost the same as you / So you see I know just what you’ve been through / And if you let me, here’s what I’ll do / I’ll take care of you,” well my heart just breaks.
The best thing Jamie’s ever done in my opinion is The xx’s eponymous debut album. It’s dark and barren with ample space to fill with yearning and anxiety and sex and fear. And more than any song on We’re New Here, closer “I’ll Take Care of U” sounds like kin to XX, expansive and ghostly, but light and just as optimistic and lovely as the rest of We’re Not Here.
And I love, I love, that it feels like the last word from Gil. On I’m New Here, “I’ll Take Care of You” is one hurt person trying to console and cajole another hurt soul. On We’re New Here, Gil seems to be telling all of us, amidst what really amounts to a disco track, that he’ll take care of us; that he’ll be here for us even in death. And he will. His music will live on. His influence will be infinite. Just look at Kanye West’s huge hit last year, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy; he sampled Gil Scott-Heron at least twice on that album.
Even with Gil gone, I can listen to “I’ll Take Care of U (or You)” and feel like he’s looking down on us, decrying our hypocrisy and championing our collective light, guiding us to someplace brighter.
Rest in Peace, Gil. We’ll try to do better.
AudioVole 
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