"We Almost Lost Detroit"

I watched the Gil Scott-Heron documentary that aired on TV-One yesterday. I knew his music, his poetry, and his story. Sitting in front of my 'idiot's lantern', taking in the spectacle of Gil Scott-Heron's stardom, his music, and his American life; I began to wonder about the powerlessness of an individual to shape a decent life even when one has talent, and thereby is, presumably, afforded something of a 'head-start' in life.
   I wonder what power music, poetry, art, or philosophy holds for the assumed consumers of these arts. Scott-Heron's music, poetry, and philosophy (his Art) has influenced a number of hip-hop artists. The power of hip-hop seems to be almost entirely economic for the few 'artists' who have made it. Sampling is everywhere: ours is a remote-control, MP3 culture. We flip real estate, cities, channels, tunes, nations, cultures - all sorts of stuff. Yet an artist - Gil Scott-heron was an artist - rarely has control over the byproducts of her art - not even Lady Day, Mingus, or Stockhausen.
  Sometimes it's best to stay underground and away from the Clive Davis's of the culture industry.
  The Last Poets and Kip Hanrahan, whether by choice or chance, manage to stay underground. I return to Kip Hanaran's music-collages quite often. I'm sure it's because of the heavy-weight musicians that Hanaran employs - If you want to know who they are, buy his CDs.
   "We Almost Lost Detroit" is a nuclear-power-danger protest song that Gil Scott-Heron wrote. It didn't take a nuclear power plant melt-down to loose Detroit, did it? We remain at a loss to formulate the proper questions. As a nation we are quite adept at providing answers - "crime", "terrorism", "sloth" - before asking the proper questions. "Power to the people!"
   Thanks to Walter Kim Heron.