One of America's greatest cultural figures of the 1970s and an inspiration to generations since, Scott-Heron had been in fragile health for many years as a result of a decades-long battle with cocaine and HIV infection.
Scott-Heron was renowned for his vivid combination of music and poetry, defining new ways of incorporating spoken-word artistry within ambitious sonic settings right up until his death. He was a key figure in post-civil rights articulation of Black America and his early works were a clear forerunner to hip-hop. Scott-Heron looms as large in the music of contemporary stars such as Kanye West (who largely based "Who Will Survive In America?" on 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy' on Scott-Heron's sampled voice and music) as he was on Public Enemy's Chuck D more than 20 years ago.
Scott-Heron's music and words are arguably in greater circulation than ever before. "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" -- definitively recorded in 1971, and notoriously used by Nike in 2007 -- is his best known song, elevated to catchphrase status despite being an all-encompassing attack on both societal complacency and false revolutionaries. He is also well known for 1974's "The Bottle," one of his biggest chart successes, which dealt with the evils of alcoholism while scoring big in discos at the time.
