Experience

A highly rated US Nu-Soul/R&B singer, Scott has been compared with everyone from Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill to Macy Gray and Randy Crawford. She’s even been described in some quarters as a latter day Billie Holiday, such is her passionate, jazz-inflected vocal delivery and poetic lyrics.

On this sprawling, ambitious double album mostly recorded live in her home town of Philadelphia, she proves she’s got the voice, the songs and the personality to go with the reputation. Sultry-smooth and ultra-sexy songs such as, ‘Slowly Surely’, ‘Do You Remember’ and ‘It’s Love’ (all featured on her debut Who Is Jill Scott?) seduce the listener into a state of bliss. By disc two it gets a bit samey though the mood is changed by an X-rated poem, ‘The Thickness’ which recalls Gil Scott Heron in its strong polemic message, in this case against sexual exploitation of the young.

Intelligent, soulful if a tad predictable at times, Experience is a perfect introduction to Jill Scott.