Originally published by the Saturday Star, 8 December 2007Jill Scott
The Real Thing: Words and Sounds Vol. 3
2/5
This album starts out well. Let it Be introduces the musical tone of the album with Scott vocalising different styles of music from soul to hip-hop and rock to reggae. These are all styles that feature throughout this album, and as the song’s title suggests, it might be a message to critics who may feel her musical style has changed too much from previous offerings, which it has. The title track, The Real Thing, and lead single, Hate On Me, are superb album openers. They are strong compositions, confidently delivered and see Scott really open up vocally. Unfortunately, the album doesn’t maintain the momentum initiated by the opening three tracks. As it progresses we reach two tracks which can only be labelled as blatant pornography. On Crown Royal, describing a sexual encounter, Scott delivers the unnecessarily explicit “You’re so big, and so thick”, and in the follow-up to this (another sexual encounter), Epiphany, she eschews the cringe-worthy lines “flip-side stomach meets sheets, and he ploughs inside as if making beets, as if this year’s harvest depended on it”. These two tracks are below par, and further bring down the rest of what is essentially a mediocre album. Though musically The Real Thing is an attempt at maturing her sound, lyrically Scott deals mostly with her divorce from her husband of five years, and though this should work well on a soul/R&B offering, she just doesn’t come across as sincere.
