First off, thank you so much for all the birthday love. I’m like a prepubescent girl at a chick flick when it comes to corny stuff like that, so it really means a lot. Birthday weekend has been awesome. This last year has bounced between extreme highs and lows for me and I’m just happy my first day of this year of my life started off on a high note.
No days off though, right? Actually, I took yesterday off. But you understand. Anyways, here are the visuals for Gil Scott-Heron’s “I’m New Here”. Really cool shit. If you haven’t heard his album, also called I’m New Here, I recommend you check it out. It’s a mix of that wise-old-man style, a touch of electric additions, some soul, some blues, and some spoken word. It’s definitely unlike anything else I’ve heard recently, and if you’re looking to diversify your music portfolio, this album will undoubtedly do the trick. The directors (Forsyth and Pollard) said this of the video:
“Some things should be kept simple; no messing, no gimmicks,” they said of the video. “Shot with completely live sound, with half an eye looking back on classic footage of performers like John Lee Hooker and Bob Dylan, we wanted to shoot something bold and direct, that captured something of Gil’s remarkable presence and the raw power of his performance. We filmed him the day before walking around his neighborhood in Harlem then on the day we returned with Gil to the studio. There’s no narrative here, this is a deliberately simple video for a deceptively simple and beautiful song.”
