I’ve been a Jill Scott fan from day one. I had the sampler of her 1st album “Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1” and played it like it was the entire album. Now with that being said, you should be able to guess how much I played the album when it actually dropped. Even though I didn’t know her, I felt like we grew up on the same block in North Philly together. You see, Jill’s from Philly and I’m from Philly. So, there’s automatically a bond between us. The same way there’s an automatic bond between Jay Z and somebody from Brooklyn. And the bond between me and Jill was thick. So thick, that when her live album “Experience Jill Scott” dropped, even though I was unemployed and loot was CRAZY TIGHT it wasn’t tight enough for me not to ask wifey to let me squeeze $12.99 out of our depleted savings to cop it. And when the buzz started to circulate about Jill’s sophomore release “Beautifully Human” I can only compare my anticipation for that album to when I was waiting for Nas to drop “It Was Written”, his follow up to “Illmatic.” I truly wish I could describe how I felt after listening to “Beautifully Human” for a good minute, and wasn’t REALLY feeling it. I mean, it wasn’t wack, but it was FAR from the greatness that I was expecting from Ms. Scott. The ill thing is, when her 3rd album “The Real Thing” dropped and my expectations for Ms. Scott were vastly lower, I LOVED the album! So I started thinking, “do I need to lower the expectation I have for some of my fave artists?” I’m not sure if I ever answered that question, but no matter what my expectations were for Jill, “The Real Thing” was just that….the real thing. So, it seems like I LOVE all of Jill’s odd numbered CD’s and don’t fool with the even numbered ones. So with her fourth album being an even numbered album, I’m expecting I’ll hate “The Light of the Sun” and we’ll see if my mathematical equation of Jill’s music holds true.
Well, after hearing “Shame”, with Philly’s favorite pit bull in a skirt Eve (which sounds like it was a leftover that should’ve been on a Cosmic Kev mixtape and not on Jill’s actual album) and “So In Love” with Anthony Hamilton, I figured my mathematical equation was accurate to the tee cause I HATE both of these songs. You get Jill Scott and Anthony Hamilton and THIS is what you come out with? Really? Can I get a do over or something? But once you get past those two missteps, you’re blessed with Jill at her best. “So Blessed” produced by Dre and Vidal (can we please get a whole Dre & Vidal produced Jill album? PLEASE?) gives Jill the perfect break beat backdrop to share all of the blessings going on in her life. “All Cried Out Redux” features the world’s greatest entertainer Doug E. Fresh on the beat box and has Jill on her Lisa Lisa jawn and “Quick” will answer some of the questions about what went down between Jill and her son’s father. “Some Other Time” has Jill reminiscing on a recent date with the first verse dedicated to how much she was feeling dude “original hip hop element, break dancing, fat laces, Beat Street, Soul Train, he’s kinda Don Cornelius to me, cooler than a fan” while the 2nd verse goes in on what dude might be “he could be a snake in the grass, deceptively hiding waiting to spill his venom on my ass, he could be cold blooded with another woman behind another door/and another couple of kids, 3 or 4.” The thing I REALLY love about the “Light of Day” is the ballads. Jill didn’t hold back on giving us some banging slow jawns for this album and that’s where “So Gone (What My Mind Says)” featuring Paul Wall (yup, Paul Wall), “Making You Wait” and “Missing You” come into play. But the gem of the album, and I do mean the gem is “Le BOOM Vent Suite” which checks in at 9 minutes and has three different movements that go from banging, to beautiful to flat out beautiful!
With “The Light of the Sun” it sounds like Jill Scott is having fun making music again. From her adlibs (“I gotta do what I gotta do son”) to her leaving the track recording while her and Doug E. Fresh laugh and chop it, I just get the vibe that Jill was chillin' in the studio with this album. Which in turn, translate into me enjoying the music that much more. So, I guess I gotta throw my Jill Scott mathematical equation out of the window cause this even numbered album is just as great as the odd numbered albums she’s dropped. But it’s all good…I’ve never been good at math anyway.
4.5 outta 5
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