‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’
Scott-Heron’s poem remains a call to action for Black Lives Matter movement
The civil rights movement was beginning to fade in 1971 when Gil Scott-Heron released “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” his iconic spoken word poem fused with funk.
It was an inspirational tune and a call to action for the Black community to stay focused on social justice efforts even when mainstream attention wanes. It also brought an awareness that the ambitions of the movement hadn’t been achieved. There was still a lot to be done.
“You will not be able to stay at home, brother,” Scott-Heron sings in the opening. “You will not be able to plug-in, turn on and cop out.”
Nearly 50 years later, the themes ScottHeron explored in “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” still appear in modern-day movements. Millions of people across the country and globe are pouring onto the streets to fight racism and police brutality and to demand officials defund police forces.
His three-minute poem continues on over funky bongo drums and flutes: “Women will not care if Dick finally got down with Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people will be in the street looking for a brighter day.”
For weeks, protesters across the country have marched daily, chanting “Black lives matter” and “No justice, no peace.” Annapolis was no different.
Despite that focus, Annapolis hip-hop artist Malcolm McFadden, known as Justice the Genius Child, feels the mainstream news cycle is already moving away from Black Lives Matter protests and onto the next story.
“That doesn’t mean stop. If you keep pushing, then things will change, even if they’re not willing to televise it,” McFadden said.
McFadden held a monthly open mic night at ArtFarm for five years called “What’s Dope” before coronavirus shut it down. The event is an opportunity for artists to showcase music that often sheds light on inequalities Black Americans face, such as racial profiling.
While living in Arundel by the Bay peninsula, McFadden said he’s had the cops called on him for playing basketball and hanging out at his neighborhood beach.
“The things that (Scott-Heron) was talking about that were going on then — racial injustice, police brutality — are things in society that are still going on today,” McFadden said.
“The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” uses references specific to the culture of the early 1970s but captures a longstanding theme Americans are witnessing in this historical moment: stay committed to movements even when they are not front and center in nightly headlines.
Today, Scott-Heron’s lyrics feel hauntingly prescient, as millions of people weigh the necessity of leaving home to battle police violence against the dangers of mobilizing in a pandemic.
On the other hand, perhaps the revolution was amplified by people staying home, stuck inside to prevent spreading the coronavirus, said Alexander Shashko, music history expert and lecturer in the Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
There are no sports on TV, no summer blockbusters preparing to hit the big screen, no distractions to draw the public’s attention away from the death of George Floyd, a Black man who an officer killed in Minneapolis on Memorial Day, Shashko said.
For years Annapolis hip-hop artist and visionary KoJo Snowden, known as Mr. 100 Shows A Year, has used his voice to speak about the importance of Black lives.
Growing up in the Robinwood public housing community, the 35-year-old artist said he’s witnessed the city’s sparse hip-hop venues, and the opportunity for newcomers to take the stage, dwindle to nothing. Snowden travels around the country performing but rarely takes the stage in his hometown. Besides McFadden’s open mic night, there is no stage for hip-hop in Annapolis, he says.
“We, as creatives, are pulling from a place of creativity where the world just sees what they put on television,” Snowden said. “When you’re in this art form, especially in hip-hop, we use the term: We are the CNN of the inner city. We are the CNN of the public housing communities.”
“We’re reporting the news that we feel isn’t being reported,” he said.
But the revolution has already happened, Shashko said. The ongoing protests are a result of Black activists working for years to change society’s attitude and perception about structural racism and police brutality.
“Things were happening that people did not see, maybe because they were distracted, the way that Gil Scott-Heron writes about — that they weren’t paying attention,” Shashko said. “But somewhere along the way over the past few years, there has been a sea change in the way that Americans have thought about race and policing, particularly white Americans.”
Whether that’s permanent or not is a question we will learn in the future, Shashko said.
Scott-Heron, a Chicago native who died in 2011, experienced segregation growing up and later landed in New York in the middle of the city’s Black Arts Movement. He became an influential figure centering Black identity in the post-Civil Rights era, helping pave the way for future hip-hop artists in the 1980s by popularizing rhyming over beats.
Not only do his themes from “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” live on, but current hip-hop artists walk in his legacy with exact references to his lyrics.
“They say the revolution will not be televised / Stop watching television, they just keep telling lies / Media be tricking us / Police keep killing us / Claiming we’re outlaws, they trynna get rid of us,” raps artist DirtRoad on Snowden’s latest track titled “I Run with Ahmaud,” referring to Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man shot and killed while jogging in Georgia.
McFadden recently released a song called “Be Safe” about the need to stay cautious when spending time outside in the summer for fear of police profiling and violence.
Other modern artists have recently released tracks drawing on the same themes surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement, including Noname’s “Song 33,” Meek Mill’s “Otherside Of America” and Run the Jewel’s 2020 album “RTJ4.”
Scott-Heron’s message that social justice movements experience successes and losses, and people need to continue to fight for change through both, lives on through those songs.