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:::Music Review:::
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Jill Scott - "Beautifully Human"
by William Ashanti Hobbs
author and co-owner of Meroen Press
September 2004
This Music Review is
sponsored by:
1102 S. Adams St., ste.#5 - Tallahassee, FL 32301
850.222.6940 - www.flavamusic.net
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This Music Review is
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Brothers, listen to this on your own accord ahead of
the rush. Feel the strength of this album on it’s own
merits before your woman cops this and, like the first
album, wears it out on your ears from repeated play so
much that’s its beauty is lost and you entertain
thoughts of hiding it from her under cushions in the
couch. It’s one thing for an artist like Scott to come
out of nowhere, as was the case the first time, but
this time, I was ready.
No jaw-dropping at the
confidence an obvious newcomer brought to the mike, no
cursing under my breath at lyrics that I as a poet,
had wished I had written.
No more confusion about how
even her jazzy-like playfulness had more depth than
the ire or sex appeal of so many other contemporary
female artists.
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It’s one thing to write all this
über-conscious, psuedo-witty commentary on what’s
missing in our music. It’s a whole ‘nother thing when
someone sits a lot of what’s missing in your lap out
of nowhere. So this time, I was ready. Or so I
thought.
"Beautifully Human" disarms immediately with the
childhood picture of herself on the CD’s cover, a
stark contrast from the secretive, fedora-covered shot
of her on "Who Is Jill Scott? Words & Sounds Vol. 1."
and the understated image of her on "Experience: Jill
Scott 826" live CD. Concerning the issue of who black
artists should be beholden to, poet Langston Hughes
stated in his 1926 essay "The Negro Artist and the
Racial Mountain" that "no great poet has ever been
afraid of being himself. We know we are beautiful."
Hughes concludes, almost proudly, that we are also
“ugly too.” Scott has taken this to the next level. To
her, we are beautiful all the time – even when we’re
dead wrong and ungodly.
Philly’s queen regnant appears to be willing to share
more of herself than before. "I am not Afraid" sounds
like a young, black female waiting to be whatever it
is that a brother is looking for, be it a lewd party
favor in his videos, the laid back girl he settles
down with when it all gets old, or whatever in
between. "Golden" seems almost too obvious to be
profound; live life like its precious. It definitely
didn’t hurt to be reminded though.
"The Fact is" is by far one of the most courageous
songs by a black woman in years. After years of the
neck-rolling rhetoric of women quick to tell everyone
how they can do everything by themselves, and men
seething in an almost violent indifference, the
virtual standstill we find in relationships of a
people touted at the conscience and “soul” of America
has amounted to love meaning goin’ "half on a baby"
and frankly, a generation of the woefully selfish,
spiritually-devoid. Scott lays the real out across a
quietly-arranged fabric of harps and acoustic guitars.
"I need you", Scott delicately pleads. The amazement
of the wide range of her career options, income and
ability to kill that ugly spider over the bed in her
single apartment has not eased the fact that she as a
woman, needs a man in her life. Not want. Not could
use. None of the those safe, plastic terms of
protection. Co-dependency be damned, she doesn’t stop
there:
"I can even raise the child we’ll make/ Make sure he’s
loved and knows what God gave us/ I can teach him how
to walk and stand but I need you to help him be a man/
We need you/ so hard to say"
"Spring Summer Feeling" keeps the same laid back
almost completely acoustic feel. Here Scott appears to
be channeling your everyday sistah as a brother turns
up the heat of his rap. The sistah’s feeling him and
letting it be known that his success is largely due to
the fact that his game is not centered around jewelry
and money. "Cross My Mind" is that ode everyone has to
the one that introduced you to yourself sexually like
no other.
So much so that you try to have the next one wear the
same perfume or do the same moves, but it just don’t
smell or feel the same. Funny how that one always
tends to get away. It could be largely because, as
Scott admits at the brink of calling this blast from
the past up and getting herself into some trouble,
“you were never good for me and/ I was never good for
you.”
"Bedda at Home" has the funkiest edge on the CD, a
sitting at the bar of a poetry café feel. This is
where you imagine Scott to be as she croons to someone
passing by and catching her eye: "You’re the kind that
turns my head and makes me look/ You’re the kind that
makes me pull single dollars out my pocketbook…. And I
know you’ll think this is crazy/But/ I got somethin’
better at home"
And she ends the song coming home to her man (mildly
hot and bothered by the dude from the club we can
conclude), singing assurances of her fidelity with a
gut-busting abandon reminiscent of “It’s Love” from
"Who Is Jill Scott? Words & Sounds Vol. 1." It’s an
abandon you’ll tend to miss in this primarily
meditative, slow-tempo CD. To hear her cut loose here
lets you know it’s not about being cool when it’s
love.
"Talk To Me" in mid-song, boldly dabbles with swing.
The bubbling aggravation Scott has for her
uncommunicative man switches gears into the big band
sound, It comes off so playful and relaxing that you
as a listener can imagine putting down the remote and
turning the game off (okay, I’m trippin’ at least
muting it) to see what’s up.
"Family Reunion" is a gem of the dysfunctional and
functional in all our families. Each and every
character, from uncle Dave at the grill, to drunk aunt
Juicy to kind-hearted uncle Jerome, makes you warm
inside. You’ll sit there and enjoy watching your
kinfolk chuckle at themselves listening to this and
asking who Jill Scott is. “Can’t Explain” states what
few women fess up to; cheating on a good man for no
good reason. Cheating with no exaggerated father
figure issue, drinking binge or over-dramatized
Lifetime Channel past relationships residue as
justification. Although Scott is unable to explain why
it went down like that, the fact that she does not
hide behind excuses is commendable.
Scott attempts to ease the disgust she senses in this
mistreated lover from the past with an apt analogy:
"if you have a nightmare, do you stop dreaming?"
Brothers: Imagine the wound too wide for stitches
after the one that made it came at us afterwards with
balm like this. Playwright and philosopher Remy de
Gourmont alleges that, "Most men who rail against
women are railing at one woman only." Scott attempts
to address the hurt in us instead of dismissing it,
attempting to free us from that camouflaged rage, one
listener at a time.
The queen, restless round the way girl, the devoted,
the tempted good girl, cheater, reflective relative,
career woman… Scott captures them all at their most
vulnerable, honest, imperfect and yet most powerful
moments. And it is, beautiful. All of it.
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