Flashback

Writer Malik Al Nasir on how the musician and poet Gil Scott-heron changed his life

This picture was taken in 2010, while I was with Gil Scott-heron on his final tour. I never had a defined role with Gil. I was 44, acting as his personal assistant, driving him across the UK. I have so many wonderful memories of chatting and joking. He was 61. Less than a year later, I was paying my respects at his funeral, reflecting on how he changed my life, and the lives of so many others.

I was first introduced to Gil’s music by my brother Reynold. At the time I was semi-literate, traumatised from a childhood of physical and racial abuse, and living in a homeless hostel.

The minute Reynold played me Gil’s music, I understood that this guy was special. Gil was an iconic artist, and the underlying objective of his work – his poetry, his music, his books – was to champion black rights, and it struck a real chord.

During his 40-year career, Gil was a revolutionary, and his commercial success was incidental. He was well known for his spoken-word hit, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (1970), which addresses racism in the United States. His impassioned singing style plus strong political messages had echoes of rap music. So much so that Gil was often described as the ‘godfather of rap’, although he distanced himself from this label. Instead, he called himself a ‘bluesologist’ – a scientist ‘concerned with the origin of the blues’.

Gil performed alongside artwhen ists like Bruce Springsteen, Miles Davis and Stevie Wonder. Many musicians – like Kanye West, who performed at his funeral – cite him as an influence on their work. Later in life, Gil battled drug addiction, and between 2001 and 2007 he was in and out of prison for possession.

Gil wasn’t your typical kind of artist, and I wanted to meet him. So, in 1984, aged 18, I went to Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre to watch him perform. It was spectacular. I managed to get backstage afterwards, and I introduced myself to Gil.

We sat and discussed the 1981 Toxteth riots, my upbringing, and Liverpool’s black community. The next day, he invited me on tour with him. He never told me what to do – I just found ways to make myself useful, whether running errands or selling merchandise at the shows.

Meeting Gil that night was pivotal: it was the day my train changed tracks. I had been taken into care when I was nine. My father, who was Guyanese, had had a stroke and spent the last years of his life in hospital. My mother, three siblings and I were living in poverty when social services turned up and took me into care. I was locked in a room and kept in solitary confinement for 14 days; it was the most traumatic experience of my life. I first met Gil, he showed me such kindness, and he was the first person to see my potential. Over the years, I was his protégé and he became a father figure and teacher. Gil nurtured my potential. He helped to undo the damage that the care system had done. He saved my life. I set up my own record label and publishing company, I got a master’s degree, and I got married and had children. Now, I’m doing a PHD in history at Cambridge, my book is being published, my album is out, and my life has been transformed. I wrote the book as a triumph of hope over adversity, but mainly in tribute to Gil.

Above Gil Scott-heron performing at Bestival in 2010. Below Malik Al Nasir with Scott-heron in Paris in the same year