It's been four years since Grammy Award-winning songstress Jill Scott dropped an album. Since then she went through a divorce, left her record company and became a mother. All these life-altering changes have influenced her latest album, The Light of the Sun.
It's an honest and heartfelt account of the challenges and dynamics of living, dating and raising a child in the modern world.
Scott masterfully juxtaposes genres, infusing her trademark warm and sultry voice with hip-hop, R&B, soul, jazz and blues melodies.
She introduces us to her 15-track album with the song Blessed, a sung-spoken tribute to her son. With lines like "I gotta get home to my son, he's so special to me. I mean I got to see him, I need to breathe him. I love the studio but I love him more", it is a celebration of motherhood that gives us a snapshot into her life. She then moves onto So In Love, a duet with Anthony Hamilton. It has a smooth R&B sound and soulful undertones that showcase her vocal ability.
Her album is a result of a studio jam session and a free-flowing and experimental vibe is heard throughout. She's playful on Shame, which features rapper Eve, and vulnerable in the ballad Hear My Call. Scott also takes us back to her poetry roots in Womanifesto, in which she explores her personal empowerment as a woman.
Scott sounds whole, mature and composed . S he's putting those messages of self-empowerment, self-love and perseverance, which were conveyed in her previous albums, into practice.
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