Jill Scott: on breakup, babies & the bona fide story behind her new CD: 'The Real Thing'

Jet, Sept 24, 2007 by Dana Slagle

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

It's no surprise that Jill Scott loves poetry, novels and music, but many people may not know that this Grammy Award-winning artist also adores another popular pastime.

"I'm a video game girl," she says as she sips on a cup of coffee and gazes at the brilliant blue view of Lake Michigan during a recent visit to the Johnson Publishing Company headquarters in Chicago.

"I love The Sims. I love old games like Robotron and Ms. Pac-Man. I love those games. I love them."

Scott's affable disposition makes the one-on-one conversation with JET as smooth as her velvety voice.

Even when she is asked about her breakup with her manager husband, Lyzel Williams, who has been a part of her life for 12 years, the neo-soul singer opens up about the delicate situation, which inspired many songs on her latest CD, The Real Thing: Words and Sounds Vol. 3. The album is scheduled for release Sept. 25.

"I felt the lyrics were so honest and genuine that they were the real thing," explains Scott.

"Everything that was important for me to say, I said it in the album--this upcoming project-so everything that I felt I had to put onto paper or into song, everything that was going on with me, I put it out there, but with the understanding that this is one person's perspective and not both because he's a great man. He's a really good guy. But this industry does affect and change things in a very serious way, I think," she explains of her relationship with Williams, whom she married in 2001.

"I would say that our biggest mistake was working together. He was my manager. He actually is a wonderful producer. He's a great producer. He actually produced a couple of songs on this upcoming album. He's phenomenal. It's not as simple as we grew apart. We're having a hard time understanding it ourselves ... It's not an easy thing at all. We are separated and we have been. That's just the straight up truth."

She's also frank about the irony of starring in Tyler Perry's movie, Why Did I Get Married? It is slated for release in October.

"I thought that was real funny. OK, my first distribution of a movie and it's Why Did I Get Married?"

In the movie, Scott plays a woman named Sheila, who is overweight and is married to a man who does not love her.

"I read the script and thought it was greats ... some marriages work and some don't. So I thought this is such a good story at this place in my life. This is great," says Scott, who ventured into acting years ago alter Ozzie Jones, a friend and Philadelphia director, heard her perform dramatic poetry.

[ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED]

"He says, 'I think you can act.' He inspired me to take a fellowship and an apprenticeship at a theater company called Arden Theatre Company, and I went there for free classes in musical theater, Shakespeare and improv-I can't even think of all the classes that I took, but I worked about 14 hour's a day, six days a week for $150 a week plus health insurance. What I did most was clean toilets, mop the floor, hang lights, build sets and worked sound-I was terrible at that," she says, with a laugh.

But she kept at it in order to earn her tuition for the 1996/1997 Arden Professional Apprentice (APA) program.

"I remember her interview very clearly," Arden's managing director Amy Murphy tells Jet of her initial meeting with Scott. "She is one of the most positive people I've ever, ever interviewed. She's a very joyful, happy person ... When she started the program, she was happy, happy, happy, but it's a hard program, hard work. She was like, 'boy this is a lot of hard work' and it was, but she was always just a beautiful, happy presence."

And Scott has come a long way since then. Not only did she get a part in the '90s Canada production of the Broadway musical Rent, in 2004, she had a recurring role in the popular "Girlfriends" TV series.

She's also been enjoying a successful music career that began with You Got Me, a 1999 Top 40 pop hit that she co-wrote for the Roots. She eventually made several hits of her own after she signed with Hidden Beach Recordings. She released the debut CD, Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1 in 2000.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Steve McKeever, founder and president of Hidden Beach, told JET that he admires the singer, actress, poet and writer.

"Jill is one of the rarest of rare artists," says McKeever. "She is one of those really exceptional types of artists that you realize that God didn't make many like this, so the experience of somebody that talented and that prolific- working with her is like Christmas on a daily basis because every day she comes up with ideas ... she's an extraordinary writer."

Scott is currently in Africa working on the film, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, scheduled for release in 2008. In the film, Scott plays a Botswana woman named Precious Ramotswe, whose passion is to work as a detective.

"She's very bright in spirit and she is brave," Scott says of the character. "She's very brave and I love that about her. This is a film where you also get to see a specific part of Africa that isn't hunger, that isn't sickness, but is a thriving community that people are just living their lives as we are here."