AGE 32
HOMETOWN Philadelphia
LATEST CD Beautifully Human: Words and Sounds, Vol. 2

•Rhythm & snooze: Scott says she sometimes composes in her sleep. Literally. After a year-and-a-half-long hiatus following the promotion of her Grammy-nominated, platinum-selling '00 debut, Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds, Vol. 1, "songs started waking me up, mostly around 4 o'clock in the morning," says the R&B singer, who took the musings as a sign to get back to work. "I'd hear full harmonies and melodies and background vocals." The result? Beautifully Human: Words and Sounds, Vol. 2, which debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart.

•Tough trappings: Raised by her mother and her grandmother in North Philadelphia, Scott, who joined her school choir at 15, didn't know she was poor until high school, when she visited a classmate's home. "I'd never been to an area of Philly where there were trees and grass in the front, on the side and in the back of the house," she says.

•Poetic justice: She now lives in a similar area near Philly herself with her husband and manager, Lyzel Williams, 33. They met in 1995, when he came to one of Scott's poetry readings. "It's flattering," says Williams of being the subject of many of Scott's songs. "When I tell a story, it sounds okay. When Jill tells the story, it sounds magnificent. She turns a night out to dinner into a song most people would want to get married by."