Songfacts®:

• I'm New Here is the thirteenth studio album by American Soul artist and poet Gil Scott-Heron, and this two-parted ode to his upbringing bookends the record.
• This track is split into two parts, which open and close I'm New Here. It is a tribute to the women in Scott-Heron's family, especially his maternal grandmother Lily Scott, with whom he was sent to live at the age of three in Jackson, Tennessee and who held the family together. He told The Daily Telegraph: "Lillie Scott was a different kind of woman. She only had a bit of schooling, but she put four kids through college."
• Both parts of the song features samples from Kanye West's "Flashing Lights." West previously borrowed from Scott-Heron's 1971 track "Home Is Where the Hatred Is" for his 2005 number, "My Way Home."
• I'm New Here was Scott-Heron's first album of original material in sixteen years, following a period of personal and legal troubles with drug addiction. Recording sessions for the album took place between 2007 and 2009 with XL Recordings-owner Richard Russell handling the production.
• Here's a piece of football trivia. Scott-Heron's Jamaican father, Gilbert "Gil" Heron was a soccer player who was nicknamed "The Black Arrow." In the 1950s he became the first black footballer to play for Glasgow Celtic.