Gerard Smith

Who was Gerard Smith?

Gerard Anthony Smith was an American visual artist, musician, and member of the celebrated Brooklyn-based band TV on the Radio. He recorded an album of original music as A Rose Parade with Shannon Funchess of Light Asylum and also produced music with Midnight Masses and The Stationary Set. He died at age 36 from lung cancer. Smith is survived by a son, Julian.

As a self-taught musician who played the piano, bass, organ, classical guitar and sitar, he studied fine arts and Art History at FIT and SUNY Purchase.

Smith was busking in a Brooklyn subway when he was recruited by TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe in 2003. Smith recalled in an interview:

I saw Tunde in the movie Jump Tomorrow on IFC. And I was super addicted to film at that time. A year later, I was playing on the subway platform here, at the Bedford stop, and he kept giving me money. And then I was like, I recognize this guy. Then it finally clicked, and I said, 'Dude you were in that movie! I loved that movie!' That film had meant a lot to me, especially because there was a black actor that wasn't in the ghetto, and there weren't a lot of politics. He was being a human being and not only a black actor.