US musician and poet Gil Scott-Heron, often called the Godfather of Rap, has died in a New York hospital aged 62.
The cause of his death is not clear, but he is believed to have become ill after returning from a visit to Europe.Scott-Heron's material spanned soul, jazz, blues and the spoken word. His 1970s work heavily influenced the US hip-hop and rap scenes.
His work had a strong political element - one of his most famous pieces was The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.
Scott-Heron's friend Doris Nolan said the musician had died at St Luke's Hospital on Friday afternoon.
"We're all sort of shattered," she told the Associated Press.
Scott-Heron was born in Chicago in 1949 - the son of former football player in Britain - and grew up in Tennessee before moving to New York.
He had a long-running song-writing partnership with pianist and flautist Brian Jackson, who he met at Lincoln University.
The pioneering style he developed while working with Jackson, mixing minimalist percussion with poetry, meant Scott-Heron was often described as the godfather of rap.
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