Whitey on the Moon

Whitey on the Moon

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Thanks to Liliana Segura for reminding me of the great singer Gil Scott-Heron’s take on Neil Armstrong’s historic moon landing forty years ago today.

Scott-Heron recorded the spoken-word poem — a humorous broadside criticizing the US government for spending billions of dollars on the space program while ignoring social issues — in 1970, and the song has been widely credited with inspiring the development of rap music later in the decade.

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