Jill Scott - Beautifully Human: Words & Sounds 2
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CD Details
Artist: Jill ScottEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2004-08-31
Music Label: Hidden Beach
Soundtracks:
- Warm Up
- I'm Not Afraid
- Golden
- The Fact Is (I Need You)
- Spring Summer Feeling
- Cross My Mind
- Bedda At Home
- Talk To Me
- Family Reunion
- Can't Explain (42nd Street Happenstance)
- Whatever
- Not Like Crazy
- Nothing (Interlude)
- Rasool
- My Petition
- I Keep
Music reviews of Beautifully Human: Words & Sounds 2
Music Review: Majestic, Possibly Too Mature for The Love Jones Crowd
Rating: 3 Stars
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.
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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Description of Beautifully Human: Words & Sounds 2
European pressing of the neo-soul singer/songwriter's 2004 album includes one bonus track 'Bedda at Home' (Acoustic). 17 tracks in total. Epic.While most neo-soulsters crank out albums like their hip-hop counterparts, Jill Scott takes a more traditional approach to her craft. Four years after the release of her debut, Who Is Jill Scott, Words & Sounds Vol. 1, Scott returns with the masterful Beautifully Human: Words & Sounds Vol. 2. The album features a collection of lush and hypnotic songs that will make you want to fall in love, live life, and be a better person all at the same time. Lead single "Golden" is a prime example of this. Set to a midtempo groove made for the dance floor, "Golden" is a shiny, beautifully-written narrative about living life to its fullest. The old-school R&B ballad vibe of "Petition" is reminiscent of Minnie Ripperton or early Chaka Khan. However, "Bedda at Home" is anything but laid back. Combining elements of jazz, soul, and old-school hip-hop breakbeats, Scott extols the greatness of her man with a swagger that can only be described as cool. Other highlights include "Family Reunion" and the socially conscious "Rasool."
The album's only flaw may be that it ends too soon, but then again it's always better to leave a listener wanting more. For Scott, being "Beautifully Human" means just that--finding the allure in all that life has to offer and that's well worth the wait. --Rashaun Hall
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