Like many of us, I first learned of Jilly from Philly about a year before she dropped her debut, per her songwriting credits on The Roots’ poignant, GRAMMY Award-winning love song “You Got Me” from their 1999 Things Fall Apart LP. So among these three albums, Scott’s debut LP is the one I most closely associate with my introduction to the Big Apple and my newfound feelings of rejuvenation and redemption upon embracing it as my new home. In fact, the latter was the first album I bought upon arriving in New York, the day after I landed in my new city.
In fact, I can immediately pinpoint three albums in particular that functioned as my most intimate musical companions during that transformative period of my early adulthood: Common’s Like Water For Chocolate, Coldplay’s Parachutes, and Jill Scott’s Who Is Jill Scott? Words And Sounds Vol. My memories of my first few months in Brooklyn are no exception to the rule. Though my family and I now live in an adjacent neighborhood just a stone’s throw away, Fort Greene remains the most vibrant and thrilling place I’ve ever called home, and I vividly relish all of the wonderful friends I’ve met and indelible experiences I had there.Īs I’ve written about many times before, my recollections of time and place are always inextricably connected to the music I was absorbed in whenever and wherever I happened to be. Desperately craving a change of scenery and a lifestyle recalibration, so to speak, I ventured east to New York and promptly signed a lease for an apartment in the neighborhood of Fort Greene, Brooklyn.įive years before I fortuitously found and fell in love with my future wife, I fell head-over-heels for Fort Greene, and I fell hard. In August of 2000, a restless soul of just 22 years and one year removed from my graduation from UCLA, I had grown indifferent toward my life in West L.A. About fifteen minutes after heeding his advice, I serendipitously met the love of my life, the incredible woman who would become my wife a few years later.īut back to that close runner-up of a life-altering decision. The first? Well, heeding the sound advice of my good friend, who persuaded me to stick around our local bar for one more drink that late October evening nearly fifteen years ago. Moving from Los Angeles to New York City in the summer of 2000 is the second wisest decision I’ve ever made. Happy 20th Anniversary to Jill Scott’s debut album Who Is Jill Scott? Words And Sounds Vol.