Jill Scott : To Whom This May Concern
One listen to “Norf Side,” some classic boom-bap material produced by DJ Premier, featuring Tierra Whack nailing bars with electric hammer flow, you understand this. Jill Scott—you know, the “Jilly From Philly” version?—has returned, with that big, bright smile in her flow, zig-zagging between singing and slanging bars with a trumpet’s free-flowing vibrato. It’s a joyful bit of emceeing, advancing the message: “I wrote the lyrics to The Roots’ ‘You Got Me.” Not Erykah. Don’t front; Jill still got it, for days.
To Whom This May Concern, Scott’s first album since 2015’s Woman is here to stand on business, make the right kind of noise, and inform these zoomers and remind all others who may have caught amnesia about the multilayered talent of this towering high priestess. Jill Scott remains diamond sharp and dart proper. Treating her talent, that always identifiable instrument, with the respect it deserves: Spreading music and love for music’s sake.
She’s not out here pushing fashion lines. Beauty products. Lifestyle brands. Not stumping for hosting a Super Bowl halftime show or shouting out a podcast. Jill’s back, promoting music that gives so much. Hopefully, reminding folks what an R&B album can still be amid all the other noise. As a matter of fact, she returns at a time when this project is somewhat simpatico with the award-winning film Sinners; both are of a big-swinging, Swiss-army knife variety, jammed with ideas and multi-purposes. A three-time Grammy award-winning icon can do that and still sound jazzy, truth-telling, and grown-folk-infused. There’s plenty to choose from, which is a treat in contemporary R&B land these days.
But when Scott is tapping that at sacred arrangement, which happens gloriously so much here, it contains those ’70s bongos in the background with subtle James Jamerson-type basslines, such as with the mahogany-lush “Beautiful People”; Scott just takes off, delving into Marvin Gaye slickness, Anita Baker jazziness, and straight-up Jill Scott poetry-driven lyrics where we get all the notes of what real love feels like, love of seeing your people, your beautiful Black people. “Offdaback” continues jazz scatting, building foundational piano chords, snare and bass drum, and upright bass, with Scott giving praise to the ancestors, with a spoken word section reveling in the joy of just walking into a bookstore, reading a book, performing for a diverse crowd, and praising those who towed the line for racial justice so long ago so Scott could exist as a free artist today.
Even the mood of moody dynamism, of “Pressha,” builds up as a ballad of sorts, but actually works as a vehicle of escapism; when you hear Scott enunciate the word “pressha,” you feel decades’ worth of relief just escaping into the ether, and Scott continues the reading of individualism within this Bobby Caldwell-type earworm.
People, she got so much here. The ballad-blues are forever decorated in hues of black, brown, and beige. She went away for a decade, did some living, and came back to share it with us just as D’Angelo and Rev Jesse Jackson passed. She knew we were going through it. If Scott’s voice were a tequila, another item she is for sure not promoting, it would read “oakie and mature.” Scott is delivering new future standards, without a trap beat in the pile here, for a world bereft of what to do with a majestic vocalist’s compass. As proclaimed on the shag-rug-deep analog warm-feeling opener, an album credo, “I do dope shit, pay attention, watch me mention, I make love, I be good, I do dope shit.”
Label: Human Re Sources
Year: 2026
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Jill Scott : To Whom It May Concern
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