In ’72 This Gil Scott Heron Song Decried Them. Still News In 2020, Nothing’s changed in 50 Years, Listen To “No Knock”

No-knock raids are in the news again after last week’s police killing of Amir Locke, but the tactic and its impact have never left the minds of artists and activists calling for its end. 

, “No Knock,” from 1972, is more freshly resonant. Scott-Heron’s poem is rapped over a pulsing beat. It’s concise, with tight lines. It’s spare, with minimal instrumentation. And it’s specific: It names names, closing in on “one of our unfavorite people,” John Mitchell.

Mitchell was the attorney general who called for no-knocks, and he became Nixon’s presidential reelection campaign chair. Mitchell approved wiretapping without court authorization, tried to spike the Pentagon Papers publication, advocated the prosecution of antiwar demonstrators, and was convicted of perjury, conspiracy, and obstruction in the Watergate cover-up. A st

Another no-knock raid has gone bad and another dead black person is in the news again after last week’s police killing of Amir Locke, but the deadly tactic is not new, and it’s not new for artists and activists who are calling for it to end. Take a listen to Gil Scott-Heron’s “No Knock” recorded 50 years ago.

Taken from the album, “The Revolution Begins” the single “No Knock,” Scott-Heron’s poem is rapped over a pulsing rhythmic beat. It resonates in topic and with it’s minimal, spare instrumentation with tight lines.

In the song Heron specifically names John Mitchell who while attorney General serving under Nixon, Mitchell infamously authorized “No Knock” for the FBI, and afterwards was adopted by municipal police departments nationally, often used against blacks and resulting in death of the occupants where the warrant was served, whether they were the actual subject / suspect or not.

Mitchell later became Nixon’s presidential reelection campaign chair, approved wiretapping without court authorization, tried to intercede and prevent the Pentagon Papers publication with a host of dirty tricks that were also illegal, he waged war on the Black Panthers and antiwar groups, and was eventually convicted of perjury, conspiracy, and obstruction in the Watergate cover-up. Mitchell is generally cited as being a leader in the war on our constitutional rights, he’s now gone but the war remains.

The poem is a lamentation that inspires protest and change and it leans into Scott-Heron’s two strongest observable attributes: resistance and results. No question that“No Knock” evokes anger and rebellion, it also demand a policy proposal to end it.

It’s not so much that Gil Scott Heron was 50 years ahead of his time, it simply means in that time nothing has changed.