CRITIC'S CHOICE
R&B
"Sweeter than your favorite ice cream be/Bask in my glory baby," coos Jill Scott on "The Real Thing," the rock-tinged title cut of her third studio CD. It's a come-on that proves irresistible on this, the sexiest album of 2007: No doubt it'll have you speed-dialing your lover. Scott, in all her real womanliness, delves further into the more sensual side she revealed on 2004's gorgeous Beautifully Human, seducing the listener with her words and sounds. She gets you with both on tracks like the lush slow jam "All I" and "Epiphany," a hip-hop-inflected midtempo groove. While the neo-soul diva does revisit the spoken-word territory of her now-classic debut, 2000's Who Is Jill Scott?, she's sounding more like the greatest pure singer in contemporary R&B. Seamlessly interweaving jazz, gospel, blues and classical stylings, this is a master class in singing.
DOWNLOAD THIS: "Whenever You're Around," a sultry and sassy ode to feeling lonely in a relationship
