To Whom This May Concern: The World as We Know It Is Indeed Over
A new world order is arising and Miss Jill Scott has come out of her 11-year hiatus with a new album to hail the dawn of a new day.
The US American multi-hyphenated artist Jill Scott has set the tone for 2026: “we can save ourselves and your rules are nothing”! Black History Month in the US, historically celebrated every February since 1976, has been hailed this year by the album’s release on February 13th, a powerful contender for love, care, and joy, which does not, however, shy away from satire, affirmation, and communal storytelling.
Miss Jill Scott’s sixth studio album comes after an over decade-long break, and the songstress’ new work seems to have been made exactly for the urgency of current times. As world leaders such as Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz bitch and moan about the world not being the same, Miss Jill Scott is reclaiming our time by singing:
"PRESSHA"
I wanted you to be mine
In the daytime as well as the night
But you needed to hide me
And that just don't sit right
I wasn't the aesthetic
I guess, I guess I get it
So much pressure to appear just like them
Pretty and cosmetic
Elementary, alphabetic
So much pressure to appear just like them
Just like them
Just like them
So much pressure to appear just like them
Just like them
Just like them
So much pressure to appear just like them
You might ask me, dear reader, what does this song have to do with world leaders and the ominous emergence of a new world order? Well, in a planet shaped by billionaire pedophiles who define beauty standards, who get to decide what academic research is funded, and who think they can threaten journalists for doing their job and get away with it, to have a black woman unapologetically singing about love, desire, and beauty is indeed R-E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N-A-R-Y.
This word has been misused, abused, commodified, but if there is anything Miss Jill Scott is achieving with her new album, it is absofuckinglutely its involvement in taking down the old “world order” one lyric at a time:
"BPOTY"
(feat. Too $hort)
Pharmaceutical
Industry
Got me dying to heal
Keep me in the hospital
Bills sky high
Suppress my symptoms
Till I die
With a little pill
Until I die
What you trying to do to me?
Yeah!
Keep me coming back like a ho on a track, and that's a fact
Biggest pimp of the year
That's right
Biggest pimp of the year
Nikki Giovanni
"ODE TO NIKKI"
Miss Jill Scott’s words are proverbs, incantations, reincarnating the impossible endeavour of making art in times of cholera. Right before taking the world by storm in what I consider to be one of the album’s best tracks, Scott issues the following disclaimer as a standalone track:
"DISCLAIMER"
For the next song, utterance and discretion is advised
You may sing along, but if you get your shit shook
I am not liable, responsible, or at fault, or fault-adjacent
If you get kicked, let's say, in the mouth, or punched in the back of the neck
There is zero accountability here
Zero, null, nil
If two or three my-size sisters
Or two or five people in this here place, happen to stomp the fuck out of you
With caramel butters
That is entirely, wholly, completely, and utterly your fault
As the track speeds up into a fast forward sound effect from the verse “I am not liable” only to be returned to normal speed at the verse “your fault”, Miss Jill Scott seems to uphold the satire of exactly how utterly hypocritical the disclaimers of our time work: by trying to remain excused from any responsibility for affecting our lives in a meaningful way. In Scott’s case, the disclaimer itself is an oxymoron, as the artist seems to know herself that her next song following said “disclaimer” will turn the world upside down, both metaphorically and literally.
Some things are better explained by being experienced rather than described, so I leave you with the track directly after “Disclaimer”, right here:
"PAY U ON TUESDAY"
“I don't want no more nigga trying to break my faith
I don't want no more nigga trying to break my faith
Well, if you think I'm talkin' 'bout just somebody Black
Well, you is the nigga and you need to know that
You's a ign'ant motherfucker, yup, facts is just facts
I don't want no more nigga blues
I said I don't want no more nigga blues
I don't want
No
More
Nigga
Blues”
JILL SCOTT