Jill Scott born April 4, 1972 is a singer, model and actress. Her 2000 debut, Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1, went platinum, and the followups Beautifully Human: Words and Sounds Vol. 2 (2004) and The Real Thing: Words and Sounds Vol. 3 (2007) both achieved gold status. She made her cinematic debut in the films Hounddog and Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married? in 2007. In Get On Up (2014) she plays the second wife of James Brown. She also appeared as the lead role in the BBC/HBO series The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.
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Scott was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She grew up an only child in a North Philadelphia neighborhood, raised by her mother, Joyce Scott, and her grandmother. She indicated in an interview with Jet Magazine that she had a happy childhood and was “very much a loved child”. Scott was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness and attended the Philadelphia High School for Girls.
After graduating from high school, Scott attended Temple University while simultaneously working two jobs. She studied secondary education for three years and, at one time, planned to become a high school English teacher. However, after serving as a teacher’s aide, Scott became disillusioned with a teaching career, and she dropped out of college.
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Early in 2010, Scott was sued by Hidden Beach Records for leaving halfway through her six album contract and owing millions of dollars in damages.[14] The label’s founder, Steve McKeever, claimed that he helped launch Scott’s career and nurtured her into a Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, but was unceremoniously dumped in October after a 10 year plus relationship. Scott, however, countersued that claim. Her live performance in 2004 with members of The Roots, which also includes a joint performance with Erykah Badu, is featured in Dave Chappelle’s 2006 concert film, Dave Chappelle’s Block Party.
Scott and longtime boyfriend Lyzel Williams, a graphic artist and DJ, married in 2001 in a private Hawaiian ceremony during a vacation. The couple dated for seven years before they wed. Scott wrote and recorded the song “He Loves Me (Lyzel in E Flat)” about Williams. After six years of marriage, Scott and Williams divorced in 2007. On June 20, 2008, at a concert in New York’s Carnegie Hall, Scott shared a long on-stage kiss with her drummer, Li’l John Roberts; the couple then told the audience that they were engaged. They expected their first child on April 25, 2009 but the baby boy, Jett Hamilton Roberts, arrived five days earlier. On June 23, 2009, Scott announced that she and Roberts had broken up, with Scott.
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Scott has established the Blues Babe Foundation, a program founded to help young minority students pay for university expenses. The Blues Babe Foundation offers financial assistance to students between the ages of sixteen to twenty-one, and targets students residing in Philadelphia, Camden, and the greater Delaware Valley. Enjoy this Golden Performance from my home girl Jill Scott
