Small Talk At 125th And Lenox by Gil Scott-Heron
A New Black Poet — Small Talk at 125th and Lenox is the debut album of Gil Scott-Heron, released in 1970 on Flying Dutchman Records, opening up with the storied “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”.
Gil Scott-Heron takes you Inside Black. Inside, where the anger burns against The Ones Who “broke my family tree.” Inside, where the black man sorts his miseries “while white men walk on stars.”
He penetrates to the core, where, blurred by the “plastic patterns” of a culture not his own, dulled by drugs, or held down by unremitting poverty, the Black’s rage smolders, ready to flare into riot.
In Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, Gil Scott-Heron, twenty-year-old poet, speaks for his people with an eloquence that has won him recognition as a major new talent. His is the voice of the new black man, rebellious and proud, demanding to be heard, announcing his destiny: “I AM COMING!”
Cover design by Lou Queralt, with photography by Charles Stewart.
