American hip hop with a Scottish slant: Gil Scott-Heron, 1949–2011

With rock and rap stars, most obituarists subscribe to the Blade Runner theory of the light that burns twice is light burning half as long.

Gil Scott-Heron was not in the Kurt Cobain or Tupac position of leaving us before his prime. He was 62 when he died on Friday. The influence he had on early hip hop has been widely stated. A spectrum of musicians including Eminem, Q-Tip (who called him “direct, complex, bright and loving”), Nile Rodgers and Beverley Knight all paid tribute. Scots may well be aware of the fact that Scott-Heron' father Gil Heron was the first black man to play for Celtic, and was known for his zoot suits, trilby hats and yellow shoes. (When Alex Ferguson saw Gerard Piqué and Wayne Rooney in yellow footwear, he made his feelings plain. But the 1950s were a different time.) Football-loving Dundee songwriter Michael Marra wrote The Flight of the Heron about Gil senior. Gil junior had another Scottish link, as he was godparent to the children of Jamie Byng, of Edinburgh publishers Canongate. What was interesting about Gil Scott-Heron was how he may have dipped in and out of fashion but he was producing terrific work right up until his passing. Most obituaries mentioned great tracks such as The Bottle, Winter in America and of course The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. The definitive Scott-Heron album may be his last, I’m New Here, which came from an unlikely sponsor. Richard Russell of XL Recordings, the man who signed The White Stripes, The Prodigy and Adele, produced an album with Scott-Heron which – as Rick Rubin did with Johnny Cash and, to a degree, Daniel Lanois has done with Bob Dylan – gave a new dimension to an artist in the autumn of his career. Reviewers agreed. Russell paid tribute at the weekend – and summed up Scott-Heron's spirit in a tweet before his death. In the studio, Scott-Heron had fancied a cigarette, adding: “Get me an ashtray and a lawyer.” There was the lead-off track Me and the Devil – and a 2011 remix album, We’re New Here, with The xx producer Jamie Smith – but it’s the lyrics of tracks like Running which have added poignancy in the aftermath of Scott-Heron’s death. As an artists, Gil Scott-Heron had a great run and his pace was as sharp at the end as it had been at the beginning of his career. Because I always feel like running Not away, because there is no such place Because, if there was I would have found it by now Because it's easier to run, Easier than staying and finding out you're the only one… who didn't run Because running will be the way your life and mine will be described As in "the long run" Or as in having given someone a "run for his money" Or as in "running out of time" Because running makes me look like everyone else, though I hope there will ever be cause for that Because I will be running in the other direction, not running for cover Because if I knew where cover was, I would stay there and never have to run for it. – Gil Scott-Heron, Running, copyright XL Recordings

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