REVIEW: After Ten Years, Jill Scott Makes an Exciting Return With ‘To Whom This May Concern’
REVIEW
REVIEW
☆ BY SAMANTHA SORIA ☆
Cover Art by Marcellus
Featured Image by Kennedi Carter
It’s been a little over a decade since three-time GRAMMY Award-winning icon and neo-soul pioneer Jill Scott released music. Her last album, Woman (2015), was applauded for its optimism and truth and the same thing can be said now, more than ten years later, of the release of her new album, To Whom This May Concern.
On its opening track, “Dope Shit” features a powerful collaboration with Miami-based spoken word artist Maha Adachi Earth. Scott’s soulful introduction, however, comes in on “Be Great,” a song featuring a collaboration with Trombone Shorty, bringing life and vibrancy to an anthem that exudes self-reasurance and confidence.
The lead single off the album, “Beautiful People” celebrates, praises, and presents its flowers to all those important to Scott. It’s clear as day in its lyrics as she croons, “My beautiful people/ Joyful people/ Sincerely caring, sharing people/ Oh my people/ Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.”
That praise and recognition continues with “Offdaback,” a powerful spoken-word track that acknowledges all those that came before Scott and paved the way for her career. “Norff Side” features another exciting collaboration with fellow North Philadelphia artist and rapper Tierra Whack. Together, the two singers work impeccably with one another, bringing a collaboration that is exhilarating and refreshing for new listeners and long-time fans.
“Disclaimer” sets as an interlude for “Pay U on Tuesday,” a forthright track backed with a New Orleans-style sound. The album continues with the second single, “Pressha” and “BPOTY” (Biggest Pimp of the Year), a song that directly tackles exploitation amongst religious and health systems and features West Coast hiphop pioneer Too $hort.
“Me 4” and “The Math” are the most introspective tracks on the album. But when it comes to “The Math,” lyrics such as “Could it be/ We be buying dreams/ to disguise what we don’t have? Could it be/ We worship things that ultimately can’t last?/ Could it be/ We sabotage love cuz it hurt us in the past?” asks a set of recurring questions that some of us may or may not have asked ourselves more than once, creating a thread of relatability and emotional validation.
“A Universe” brings love and continues to do so with “Don’t Play,” “To B Honest” feat. JID, and, most personally favorable, “Liftin’ Me Up,” a track which brings a profound lyric such as, “You’re like an aloe to my cut,” that paints how good love can heal many scars and wounds.
Scott’s guaranteed storytelling continues with spoken word “Ode to Nikki” featuring Ab-Soul but takes a turn with “Right Here Right Now,” a dance-infused track that is guaranteed to awaken all senses before concluding on final, soulful chapters “Àṣẹ” and “Sincerely Do.”
If there’s anything that To Whom This May Concern can show us, it’s that, yes, ten years can feel like a lifetime, but a decade-long gap can also be a surprising gift, one that allows healing and life to be nurtured and flourished and with Jill Scott’s return, she’s done so remarkably and has proven once again why she’s a principal voice in music.
