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Jill Scott took two and a half years to follow her 2004 Beautifully Human with January's Collaborations. Eight months later, the true sequel suggests that all those duets weren't just to help her writing. Scott's new album traces the arc of a relationship whose dissolution slows her down midway through -- until Track Thirteen. There, a new fella shows up to cure her "Celibacy Blues," touching off the whispered, honeyed "All I," a lesson for any horndog naive enough to believe that toned babes make better sex kittens. As with so many new R&B heroes, Scott's music is more about groove and mood than song. But more than Maxwell or D'Angelo, she cares about words, and no matter how poetically she muses, tracks like the turf-claiming "Real Thing," the erotic "Crown Royal," the distressed "Insomnia" and the inspired "Breathe" always situate her in space and time.
- Rolling Stone
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The photos on the cover and within the booklet of The Real Thing: Words and Sounds, Vol. 3 do not match the music. Does Jill Scott really have to hail a cab? Is she really awakened in the middle of the night by the need to write songs with an anguished look on her face? Really? Because these songs sound like they were written as she was fed chocolate-dipped strawberries while sprawled out on a bed cloaked with rose petals. Well, that's not entirely true — there are some exceptions, like the furious "Hate on Me," and a couple songs involving deep heartache and sharp admonishments. For the most part (and considerably more so than Scott's first two studio albums), however, The Real Thing is for romancing couples. While some of the collaborators — Andre Harris, Vidal Davis, Adam Blackstone — are all over the singer's past releases, there's a handful of relatively new and significant associates, most notably JR Hutson. (Presumably the son of '70s soul great Leroy Hutson, he is listed as "L. Hutson, Jr." in the songwriting credits.) Hutson and Scott co-wrote four of the album's sweetest and steamiest songs, most of which have a few things in common with mid-'70s albums involving any combination of Minnie Riperton, Leon Ware, and Marvin Gaye. 4hero's "Les Fleurs" cover aside, "Come See Me" is the closest anyone has come to channeling Minnie, updating the slowest, most sensual sides of Perfect Angel and Adventures in Paradise. On the other hand, "Crown Royal" maintains that gooey, slightly sleazed-out sound of Marvin's I Want You while dispensing with the double entendres of that touchstone; Scott gets as erotic as ever, even raunchy at points, while making it all sound like poetry instead of straight smut. It's almost like she heard Janet Jackson's Damita Jo and figured, "Yeah, that's nice, but I can do it about ten times better."
4 Stars
- allmusicguide.com
Artist: Jill Scott
Album: The Real Thing: Words and Sounds Vol. 3
Date Of Release: 2007
Genre: R&B/Soul
Bitrate: VBR --alt-preset extreme
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