Jill Scott

Raised as a Jehovah's Witness, Jill Scott planned to be a teacher, but her love of performance took her in a different direction entirely. Her career began with poetry readings, where she was spotted by Amir Thompson, who invited her to work with his band The Roots, co-writing the song You Got Me, which won a 2000 Grammy Award for The Roots and Erykah Badu. It resulted in further collaborations by Scott with Will Smith, Eric Benet and Common and the release of her debut album Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1. She had a hit with the single A Long Walk, earning a Grammy Award nomination (in 2003) for Best Female Vocal Performance and winning the Grammy two years later for Cross My Mind. More acclaim followed as a result of the live album Experience and the 2004 studio album Beautifully Human: Words and Sounds Vol. 2. Scott continued to combine music with poetry and acting and, after a contractual dispute with her record company Hidden Beach, she released the acclaimed The Light Of The Sun, her first album for four years, in 2011. It went straight to the top of the US album charts and produced the hit single So In Love.