Heroes of 2011: Number 3

Jamie XX may have been a bit ubiquitous this year. There must only be a few people on the planet he didn't offer his steel pans to. Gil Scott Heron, Radiohead twice, Falty DL, Adele, Rhianna and his own solo debut on Numbers. When working with the former legends, he produced some of the best work of his career and with the initially questionable moves of working with the latter mainstream artists, produced some of the best work of their careers. Add to that his increased dj schedule this year and rumours of working on new material with The XX and he has been a busy boy but it doesn't look like the start of 2012 is going to slow him down any.

We're New Here Lp with Gil-Scott Heron
Far Nearer
Bloom Rework 1 and 3
Hip Love
Rolling In The Deep
Fact Mix 239 with Oneman

RIP Gil Scott-Heron

Sad news to wake up to this morning about the loss of one of the greats, Gil Scott-Heron.


I felt lucky that a legend had made a come back with two outstanding albums that really stood up with the rest of his classic 70's records and that some of his stuff was now of 'my' time rather than just loving the older stuff. This is especially the case now we know that is his last material (no doubt archives of unreleased stuff will now be rush released) rather than going out on a low note.


Winter In America





Lady Day





Angel Dust





Push Comes To Shove





We Almost Lost Detroit





Rivers Of My Fathers





Is That Jazz?





B Movie





The Revolution Will Not Be Televised





The Bottle





Richard of XL Records, who put out his last two albums, has blogged about recollections and tribute.


http://richardxl.tumblr.com/post/5925450034/the-last-conversation-i-had-with-gil-scott-heron


And finally, the first mix I saw, and what broke the news to me, from blackclassical digging a little deeper than other tribute mixes will no doubt go.

RIP Gill Scott Heron by Black Classical on Mixcloud