| Spirits | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1994 | |||
| Recorded | April 1993 | |||
| Genre | Jazz, poetry, blues | |||
| Length | 56:34 (CD) | |||
| Label | TVT | |||
| Producer | Gil Scott-Heron, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Malcolm Cecil | |||
| Gil Scott-Heron chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    [1] |
| Christgau's Consumer Guide |  [2] |
Spirits is the 1994 album by Gil Scott-Heron. The title track is an interpretation of the John Coltrane piece Equinox, and "The Other Side" is a live version of Scott-Heron's 1971 track "Home is Where the Hatred Is" with a new arrangement and many new verses that expand the original to nearly twenty minutes. It was later sampled for "Home" on the 2011 Jamie XX collaboration album, We're New Here .
Contents
In the liner notes, Scott-Heron discusses the new, jazzier tone of the record, and the attempts to define his sound:
What do you call reggae, blues, African vibration, jazz, salsa, chants and poetry?... Seriously trying to define it, I've said it's Black music. Or Black American music. Because Black Americans are now a tremendously diverse essence of all the places we've come from and the music and rhythms we brought with us.
This was Scott-Heron's first album in twelve years, and it would be sixteen more years before he would release another. "Lady's Song" and "Work for Peace" were omitted from the vinyl issue, while other songs were edited slightly for runtime.
