Who is Jill Scott?

An inquiry and a tribute

We are losing our humanity. Our empathy, our internal mechanisms to cope with grief, loss, failure, and rejection are slowly eroding. We have fallen prey to the distinct pattern of treating joy as fleeting, an elusive target to capture and voraciously consume. We eschew vulnerability in favor of on-demand gimmicks and personas as we keep searching for something to fill the void.  At the same time, amidst all of the losses, people are reverting to nostalgia and revisiting simpler times. People are looking for every form of escape, whether through consumption, travel, medication, or music. As a result, the consistent lament is that the present times feel lonely and empty of substance. Who is Jill Scott? The artist asks a simple question that gently hones in on the core of our humanity, the need to understand and love who we are. Her debut sits at the crux of waning analog days and the rise of commercial music, and through it all she remains grounded in the best parts of reality. 

The ills currently plaguing our society are not novel, but they are exacerbated and accelerated in part by our own behaviors. This feeling was just as true twenty-five years ago when the internet first became popular, and war was erupting globally. Arguably, artists acted as bellwethers offering us the insights into the changes that tailored our reality for better or worse. One of those trends was the emergence of neo-soul music, the gritty child of Philadelphia soul and circumstance. The Philly art scene in the late 90s was vibrant and full of unknown singers, writers, poets, and rappers that were striving to make their voices heard and make sense of the world. 

Amidst the commotion, Jill Scott’s gentle voice emerged like a hand offering to help you up. Her debut album presented itself in such a way that you knew that if you met her in person, she would be just as strangely familiar and comforting as the words and melodies. The sensibility of her lyrics included the firmness of a woman that worked hard and fought; the strength of a soul that held and loved, and the tenderness of a poet that called forth the beauty and joy of each new day by letting in the light. There was humanity that was nearly tangible in every track. 

Experiencing the sonic question of Who is Jill Scott was an invitation that was timely and refreshingly honest. The album is a journey routed through neighborhoods and family gatherings of the past. It is reminiscent of the magnifying glass held up as a child, spying on ants and cracks in the sidewalk, and eavesdropping on grown-ass neighbor disputes. It was the detours through hair salons and barbershops that held the same suspicion you heard at home when people talked about the government. It was the kind of path that felt so normal, so familiar that even as you planted your feet on new territory, you still felt safe. 

If the album was a landscape rather than a soundscape it would be a place where the air feels lighter and the ground softer. Under the vibrato of jazz horns, truths buzz in your ears like fat bees on a warm day, annoying (or charming depending on your perspective) but not really harmful. The melodies track mornings that gave way to rowdy afternoons with the hustle and bustle of the city and all of its commotion. The pop of go-go beats was always enough to wake you up out of any stupor or trance and bop along in a way that now, might almost seem corny, but then, was nothing but genuine. The lyrics were the kind that made aunties cock their heads and put one finger in the air “that’s right!” as they stirred pots on the stove in the afternoons. Even the nights were covered, sunsets for romance, piano chords covering heartbreak, and the musings many can only face in the dark, especially when it comes to heartbreak, loss, and tragedy. 

These potent sounds opened hearts, exposing the damaged parts, the hope hidden in quiet chambers, and the love all around. The deeper down the path each track led us, the clearer it became that Jill Scott was exploring her humanity in a way that returned us to our own. Every tentative and salacious thought that had slicked across your tongue was there, grooving on an easy beat in the name of love. Sensuality was no more sinful than hope; they were both conveyed with a sense of intimacy and ease that incorporated them into the natural fabric of life. 

There was a purpose for asking this question. Who are we? And how can we be sure? Do we need to be sure? What becomes clear in sixty-nine minutes is that the answer isn’t simple, but it is rooted in love, and a connection to the past. As a daughter of Nikki Giovanni and Sonia Sanchez, Jill Scott used the power of words to tell a story that was much hers as it was ours. And as much as she was connected to the artist scene in Philadelphia at the time of this album’s creation, she was always distinct.  

Imagine in the late 90s, in Philadelphia a group of artists (poets, musicians, rappers, singers) who all knew each other, fostered the community that became the core of a genre, and energized neo-soul in such a way that it was classified as a movement. These were people who embraced history, and experimentation in a way that enabled them to collaborate and inspire one another. These were also working artists, holding down multiple jobs, and working constantly to make ends meet. They were rooted in the reality of working, living, and loving because that was central to their art and survival. 

Commercial success was always uncertain, especially since the record industry was at the height of pushing formulaic approaches to sell albums rather than looking to foster organic movements. Out of all of that no one expected that Jill Scott would emerge from the noise of the day to focus our attention on the daunting task of understanding who we are individually and collectively. She wasn’t a model, or part of the record-industry machine. She was an open, smiling soul that gave the price of croissants and strawberries in songs. Yet despite any preconceived notions about her differences, she did as musicians always do, and made an ask for listeners to take up the task of going along on her journey. It was a task that would require us to regularly examine life objectively and subjectively in order to understand love and fear. 

Jill Scott combined the tools of spoken word, the drama of theater, and infused jazz, blues and soul into her melodies to fashion an accessible hope out of sound. She held our attention. The album is an immersion into the depths of the lived human experience. Love, joy, anger, self-righteousness, timidity, arrogance, fear, yearning, it’s all there in the songs. To answer who we are, defining our feelings is a starting point, but it is equally essential to understand how we got here and why our world looks the way it does, good and bad. When she says that what she loves most is Love, it’s not fluff or a throwaway statement, it’s the core of what must be examined over and over again to fully appreciate what the album did. It gave us a way to be honest about love and fear without owning the words or directly confronting ourselves or others. This soft approach still stands in contrast to the blunt force tools used by so many in music to depict the world around us. 

As an artist she created a path for empathy because her words allow us to see and feel their everyday lives in the music. Jill Scott in many ways centered her life around community, from her family to her block in North Philly where she affectionately referred to drug addicts and dealers as “her crackheads,” and “brothers that I knew.” By speaking about lived realities without shame or fear she validated the importance of each person’s lived experience. No one was waxing poetic about grocery shopping or making breakfast, and by doing so she brought a refreshing level of honest imagery to music that made neo-soul feel genuine. This feeling is the very thing that makes crowds in the thousands sing along to every note, leaning and swaying, high fiving one another and giggling as they trade knowing looks. It’s the way the generations blend their experiences, their collective satisfaction and share that extended vocal “griiiiiits” as they bask in the pleasure of community and the notion that our experiences are not singular, but rather collective. It creates a validating space for the realest parts of living.  

No one expected the album to feel as good as it did, as it does. It came in like a surprise visit from a beloved relative. Jill Scott spoke to us like she knew us, and it resonated. There is something about hearing the truths of life from an everyday type sister-friend that makes you listen, makes you willing to be vulnerable. Jill Scott made us connect to her, to the music, and to each other, all while ushering in a new brand of soul in a welcoming way. And the songs still feel good twenty-five years later. 

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This was my intro for my submission to the 33 & 1/3 series to write about Jill Scott’s first album. Since my submission was not one of the selections this year, and you can’t resubmit, I’m giving you all the intro and the parts that I wrote because this album is important.