San Diego Reader

Despite his 60 years, Gil Scott-Heron is still hip, inspiring informed rappers with star-smashing paradigms like the oft quoted "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." He even got an extended namedrop on James Murphy's cred-laden colossus "Losing My Edge."

After a two-decade absence, Scott-Heron's returned to the studio and released I'm New Here, which simultaneously sounds retro and futuristic, by sending the artist’s talkin'-soul goodness into bleak, deep-space thumps and thuds.

Scott-Heron opens with the first of a two-part def-poetry jam, "On Coming from a Broken Home," where he (Kanye sample-equipped) throws dark on the misinterpretation on the definition of poverty in America, how it was only until the white man informed him that he "came from a broken home" did he realize it. Yes, 40 years since Pieces of a Man and he's still as malcontent as ever.

Religion, drugs, New York, Scott-Heron tackles it all in his cracked, cigarette-scorched voice, sounding like a bizarre breed between Tom Waits and Marvin Gaye when he delivers lines like "I did not become someone different...that I did not want to be." The world would be a lot less interesting if he had.

• Album title: I'm New Here (2010)
• Artist: Gil Scott-Heron
• Label: XL Recordings
• Songs: (1) On Coming from a Broken Home (Part 1) (2) Me and the Devil (3) I'm New Here (4) Your Soul and Mine (5) Parents (Interlude) (6) I'll Take Care of You (7) Being Blessed (Interlude) (8) Where Did the Night Go (9) I Was Guided (Interlude) (10) New York Is Killing Me (11) Certain Things (Interlude) (12) Running (13) The Crutch (14) I've Been Me (Interlude) (15) On Coming from a Broken Home (Part 2)