I'm New Here

"In the week that NME announced its 50 best records of the past decade, I heard one of the next decade's best."
- Jude Rogers

Along with The Last Poets, American musician and poet Gill Scott-Heron is the most important "proto-rapper" of the last five decades. 'I'm New Here' is his first album in 13 years...

Gil Scott-Heron first came to prominence in the late '60s / early '70s and is cited as a supreme influence on countless hip hop vocalists and producers, from Chuck D to Mos Def to Kanye West and plenty more besides. Throughout a career spanning five decades, Scott-Heron's deep, soulful voice spoke of nuclear weapons, Reaganomics or apartheid, always from deep inside the tradition.

In 1971 he effectively laid out the blueprint for the whole rap genre with his slinky, bad-ass anthem "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" (on which the then 23-year-old poetically dismantled the entire '70s "culture" of the time).

Despite an incredible and influential body of work, Scott-Heron has not released an album since the 1990s... until now, with 'I'm New Here'. Produced by XL label owner Richard Russell, it sees Scott-Heron reflecting on his life with his trademark vocal power and insight, sharing his visions among Russell's flickering, electronic soundscapes; which at various times conjure up thoughts of Burial & The XX, as well as a host of hip hop influenced sounds. 'I'm New Here' is brave, contemporary and quintessentially Gil Scott-Heron.