Check out Jill’s performance a few weeks ago from Ellen. She kills it.

Jill Scott in Atlanta
By Sonia Murray | Wednesday, October 31, 2007, 06:00 AM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
First R&B singer Jill Scott did a dynamic private show at the Georgia Freight Depot Monday evening, and then the following night many of her 11 band members - including drummer Lil John Roberts - took part in the weekly Tuesday Jam at Sugar Hill in Underground Atlanta.

Those two performances combined made for an exceptional way to start a week in live music on the Atlanta scene. And while many at Sugar Hill were expecting Scott herself to grace the stage - as she did earlier this year when she was in town filming Tyler Perry’s “Why Did I Get Married? ” - the line-up of folks in the audience and on the microphone were still worthwhile. If not remarkable, including: Anthony David, Keisha Jackson, Nicci Gilbert of Brownstone, Scar, Trina Meade of Three5Human, Phillipia, Kelsy Davis and Kerisha Roi. Backing them up were an ever-changing line-up of musicians including Roberts, guitarist Billy Odum and Phil Davis on keyboards. And of course there was the electric weekly hostess, Joi and local legend DJ Kemit on the turntables.

Photos and story by www.accessatlanta.com

Jill’s buzz tour landed in Miami a few days ago and we a happy to share a few pics from the show from a fan. Enjoy the photos. Most of you have been wondering when Jill will be doing her full blown tour…. Look out for a huge US Tour at the beginning of 2008. These private shows are closed the public but she will be back after she tours Europe. Enjoy…

Jill sipping on ’soda’… having fun at her own show…. go Jill!

HIDDEN BEACH ARTIST PETER BLACK’s contribution to the community. As committee member and Panelist. Music Panelist: Hidden Beach’s Recording Artist Peter Black, his manager Robin Yip and Director of Wee Jazz - Washington Rucker’s dialogue was provocative, stimulating and informative.

Peter Black and his manager Robin Yip discussed preserving and saving African-American music intended for academics, students, directors based in the various cultural arts disciplines. Peter Black and Robin Yip also explored and discussed the growing trends in the development, production and distribution of black culture locally and globally to the extent to which arts, culture and entertainment are pre-cursors to the global community economic vitality.

By M.Baker
Jill took the stage shortly before 9:30P to a crowd of 600+ lucky fans, and started her set with “The Real Thing” – it was so hot it literally set the fire alarms off! She followed with “Ephiphany” and “The Way”. The show was truly amazing, especially since she performed in front of a full band and horn section – which surprised a lot of people in attendance considering it was a free event. The big songs of the night were definitely “Crown Royal” – which was funny she sang since it was a Bailey’s sponsored show – but in her words “we have to live in the now…and it’s a metaphor song”! Other crowd favorites were “How It Make You Feel” – of course “Hate On Me” and “A Long Walk”. Following a quick break, Jill returned to the stage for an encore performance which included “Golden” and “He Loves Me”.

Following her 1 ½ hour performance, VIP’s were invited to a special room to enjoy more Bailey’s concoctions and a meet-n-greet with Jill. It was a fantastic show…all I can say is I can’t wait until she comes back through Texas again!

Help Jil Scott’s new single reach the Top. Call your local radio station to request “My Love”.

Photo courtesy of Earl Gibson www.earlgibson.com

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Watch Jill’s new video

Keite Young
By Norman Mayers

Love and pain. Joy and sorrow. Spirituality and sexuality. Hidden Beach recording artist Keite Young is all about the dual nature of life. His music is equal parts blues, soul, gospel, and rock, referencing the many traditions of African-American music and weaving them into a complex tapestry. Ordained as a minister at a young age yet having experienced his share of heartache, the album The Rise and Fall of Keite Young is a powerful testament to a life truly lived.

Nu-Soul: Are you excited about your album coming out?

Keite: I am. I am excited about that. It’s my first release. I’m excited that people out there are looking forward to it.

Nu-Soul: You were ordained at age 14. How and why did that happen at such a young age? And how instrumental was that experience in the music you’re creating now?

Keite: I think just like being a musician or an artist, being a minister, you don’t choose that. It kinda chooses you and you either respond now or respond later. As far as the age, I didn’t really have much to do at that age. I was raised in the church all my life. Apart from that I had a relationship with God all my life. It was more so a matter of me knowing that yes it was real and that is was going be a part of my life. I guess the way that affected my music is I think I’m more sensitive to things of a spiritual nature and I am able to incorporate that into a sensual environment because I’m both. I’m don’t deny that. I am a very sensual person and I’m a very spiritual person. I don’t think the two conflict at all.

Nu-Soul: Now what was your experience touring with Kirk Franklin like. I’m taking it back here a little.

Keite: It was a bunch of fun. There were some hard lessons I learned. I had some great time. I think I really learned first hand what the struggle between art and commerce was like. It was a huge learning process. I’m very thankful for it.

Nu-Soul: Your music is a lot more sexual or sensual than your gospel roots would lead people to believe. What really lead to that change of shift?

Keite: I think it was always there. Not only was I influenced by gospel but my Great grandfather was also a deacon and a renowned blues singer. And he still sings the blues until this day. There was an old juke joint by the name of the Blue Bird that he still performs in today. So the blues was also a profound influence on my musical maturity. As well as Led Zeppelin, and rock, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and all these blues cats. When I look back at it, I think I’ve come to terms with it so quickly because my family they were huge Prince fans, Parliament fans, Sly Stones fans, but we went to church six days a week. It was really a beautiful thing to grow up like that.

Nu-Soul: What is the significance of title of your album The Rise & Fall of Keite Young?

Keite: The album title describes my rhythm. The rise and fall. Not so much from a finality standpoint. Everyone thinks it’s so finite or it’s tragic. To me what I wanted to convey was not only my rhythm, my day to day, my experience, but I wanted to reflect and to show some commonality between my rhythm and your rhythm. My theory is we are not all as different as we appear to be. We all want the same things, Joy. Success. We all fear the same things. Pain. Discomfort. So that’s what I wanted to convey with the title.

Nu-Soul: So how did you come to work with Hidden Beach?

Keite: Well my Great Uncle, by the name of William Tidsdale, he was at my grandparents for a family gathering and I was in the game room, which was my makeshift studio at the time. He just came in and was listening to what I doing. It was just some songs I was doing and he heard it and he was taken aback. He told me to put what I had on a CD and he would bring me back a record deal. He shot it over to Steve Harvey and he loved it and the next week I went out to meet him and it pretty much went from there.

Nu-Soul: How did your collaboration with N’Dambi come about?

Keite: N’Dambi are from the same place practically. She’s from Dallas. I’m from Fort Worth. We’ve known each for a few years. We’ve always been close and admired each other. I had an idea for a song I wanted to write with her so we just sat down and wrote it. She was working with a producer who had a track that we took a stab at it. It was really very casual. We have a lot of synergy her and I.

Nu-Soul: Now you’ve gone through a lot of major life changes during the recording of this album. How much of that comes through in the finished work?

Keite: It’s kinda a hotspot right now. There are some songs on the album that are 10 years old. There are some that are still relevant to me and to my experience but I think the changes that I went through during the making of the album kinda crept in on three to four songs. I think once you hear you can pick them out. I came into my own as an artist.

Nu-Soul: How would you describe your own music and who are some of your biggest influences?

Keite: I think the first word I would use to describe it is passionate. Whether it’s pain or joy I feel things very deeply. I am a bit of an extremist. You will probably listen to the record and hear several different people. As far as my influences, my earliest influences really were just movies. I’m a very visual person. So movies like Star Wars. But everyone from Sam Cooke to the guys in my old churches make chorus. I wanted to sound like those guys because they sounded like they smoked and drank all the time. To Jimi to Sly Stone. I went through a really bad Little Richard phase.

Nu-Soul: What can people expect to see in your live performances?

Keite: My live performances are based around energy. It’s not so much what you see or what you hear but a combination of both. My goal is to transport you into my world. I want each and every person to feel like it’s just me and them. It’s like making love.

Nu-Soul: After the album comes out what is next on your agenda?

Keite: Tour. Tour. Tour. I want to be constantly out on the road. Making the record is one experience but I’m a performer. I really have a heart for the stage and I just want to be everywhere.

myspace.com/keiteyoung

Keite Young’s website

Ringo H.W. Chiu / For the Times

Like any good poet, Jill Scott captures the deeper meaning in everyday moments in her songwriting.

The live show exceeds the album, and the energetic singer’s playful asides exceed what can be published.

By Serena Kim, Special to The Times
October 18, 2007

Jill Scott pauses for a moment, takes a big swig from an imaginary drink and wipes her lip with emphasis. “It’s just a metaphor for something I want more,” she confides to the packed crowd Tuesday at the House of Blues.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that she’s talking about sex. And she mentions it repeatedly throughout her highly erotic performance. Her ad libs and interludes are so risqué, they can’t be quoted in a family newspaper.

Someone in the crowd whispers that the sexual energy is the emotional byproduct of her recent divorce from Lyzel Williams, who was the subject of some of her past love songs. And the set list does reflect an aching heart: “Hate On Me,” “Celibacy Blues,” and “Crown Royal,” a trio plucked from her new album “The Real Thing: Words and Sounds Vol. 3.”

Like any good poet, Scott captures the deeper meaning in everyday moments in her songwriting. She sees the pathos of kitchen sinks and collard greens. On “Epiphany,” another new one, she chants about heaving, glistening body parts and squirting massage oil to a syncopated conga drum, only to end with, “But why do I feel so empty?”

Ironically, she’s probably one of the least empty and most substantive vocalists in R&B. Her voice is a magnificent instrument of virtuosity. She transitions from different sonic textures with agility: jazz, gospel, blues, even opera. In one moment she mewls like a vulnerable kitten. Then, the emotion wells up inside of her swaying body, erupts from her mouth and soars to the rafters in a satisfying musical catharsis, a powerful antidote to the antiseptic, digitized nano-noise we’ve grown accustomed to in recent years.

Her massive band — with its brass section, drums, guitar, bass, synthesizer and trio of backup singers — follows her every lead with a sound that is lush and well-oiled. The live show is better than the album in the way the book is usually better than the movie.

The mature, 30-plus crowd eats it up with gusto. Friends and lovers sway and embrace. Some couples kiss to the slower, more romantic songs. Large swaths of the audience sing along. “Hold on, how is it the album has been out only a couple weeks, and you already know the words? Are you showing off?” teases Scott.

By 10:30 p.m., the show has erupted into a full-throttle dance party (concertgoers don’t yet know that they will have to wait more than two hours for their cars in the House of Blues valet). Everyone moves to her 2004 hit single “Golden.” She receives a bouquet of flowers and does a little beauty pageant wave. But wait, the show isn’t over.

A gentle piano solo emerges from the darkness and Scott breaks into an emotional rendition of “He Loves Me (Lyzel in E Flat)” — the song about her ex-husband. She sings, “You tease me/you please me/you school me,” with such searing intensity, it almost seems like every glass in the venue will break. Speaking of which, did anyone ever get her that drink?

Help raise money for a cause. Purcahse Jill’s new CD at your local Ashley Stewart store and $5 dollars of the proceeds will go to The Ashley Stewart Foundation.

For more information visit:
http://www.ashleystewart.com/AS/flash/JillScott/JillScott.html

Jill lands in Los Angeles and gives her best performance at the House of Blues in Los Angeles. If you were at the concert tell the family ‘How It Make You Feel’. Photos courtesy of Arnold Turner (A.Turner Archives-07). Enjoy…

Jill with Steve McKeever and Sheila’s Husband Richard T. Jones from “Why did I Get Married”.

Jill Scott with Mc Lyte

Jill Scott and Sheila’s Husband Richard T. Jones from “Why did I Get Married”.