The artist is amazed by a partner’s devotion (“Love”) and tells her boyfriend, “You’re different and special in every way imaginable” (“He Loves Me”). “Try” urges listeners to persevere. On “Brotha,” the singer encourages a friend and claims personal responsibility for her fellow man (“Am I my brother’s keeper? Yes I am”). She complains that, for all of our surveillance technology, Big Brother misses the drugs, weapons and dirty cops in her community (“Watching Me”).
Two profanities are joined by crass sexual slang. On “Exclusively” and “Love Rain,” Scott practically swoons as she describes sexual romps outside of marriage. “Honey Molasses” reflects on a night of passion with an uncommitted partner (“You chose not to call me . . . although the night before you were in my home, my body . . . It was magic the way it happened”). Talk of reincarnation appears on “Love Rain” and “Do You Remember.” “A Long Walk” seems to put equal stock in the Bible and the Quran. It also makes a veiled reference to smoking marijuana. A woman threatens to “whoop” a rival getting too close to her man (“Gettin’ in the Way”).
Violence, language, drug use, sexual immorality and faulty theology. None are what you’d call “over the top” by pop music standards, but they’re all represented. Who Is Jill Scott? Apart from a few sterling sentiments, she’s an urban poetess teens are better off without.
