Gil Scott-Heron was a poet who played piano, a jazz musician who rapped before rap had a name, a prophet who looked at America and told it exactly what he saw. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised -- recorded in 1970 with a conga and a Fender Rhodes -- isn't a song. It's a diagnosis. 'You will not be able to stay home, brother.'

He wrote novels. He earned a master's degree from Johns Hopkins. He recorded with Brian Jackson, making albums that fused jazz, soul, and spoken word into a form that hip-hop would later claim as its own. Pieces of a Man. Home Is Where the Hatred Is. Johannesburg -- one of the first songs to make apartheid an international issue.

Then addiction took hold. Crack. Prison. A decade of silence. He came back in 2010 with I'm New Here -- produced by Richard Russell of XL Recordings -- part poetry, part electronic blues, all testament to a man who'd been through the fire and was still standing in the ashes. He died in 2011. The revolution still hasn't been televised.

Gil Scott-Heron -- the godfather of rap. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. Pieces of a Man. The revolution still hasn't been televised.