If there’s one universal truth about Jill Scott, it’s that she contains multitudes. It’s been a recurring revelation across her discography, dating back to her 2000 debut, “Who Is Jill Scott?: Words and Sounds Vol. 1,” which radiated warmth and introduced her as a raconteur who embraced the comforts of romance while pointedly analyzing its complexities. Each Scott album has invited something of a similar experience: a flip through her diary, a journey across the human experience as threaded through her vision.
Not much has changed thematically for Scott, now 53, who approaches her sixth studio album, “To Whom This May Concern,” with the same bravado that’s come to define her. She’s at once brassy and contemplative on her first project in more than a decade, poring over the wreckage of her two divorces (“I married a bitch,” she sasses on “Me 4”) while finding love where and when she least expects it (“A Universe”). But Scott finds her surest footing in the music: “To Whom This May Concern” is, artistically, her most experimental album to date, a project that paints with wildly broad strokes and continuously returns on its investment.
Scott pulls from all directions here — cocktail jazz, big band, cosmic R&B, even diva disco — recalling the scope and ambition of longtime associate Erykah Badu’s pair of “New Amerykah” albums. She enlists a staggering number of musicians across the set’s 19 tracks, including Om’Mas Keith, Ab-Soul, Camper and JID, to name a few. (In the lead-up to the release, Scott thanked each artist with an Instagram post, totaling nearly four dozen contributors.)
