In the Mix

Journalism is such an imperfect proposition. This Jill Scott quote didn't make the final cut in my interview with her that ran in the Sunday Inquirer. She was talking about her experience shooting The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency in Botswana with director Anthony Minghella this past summer, and how the communitarian vibe she got from the people there reminded her of growing up in North Philadelphia - near 23rd and Lehigh, between Oakdale and Harold, to be precise.

Precious Ramotswe, the protagonist from Alexander McCall Smith's series of best selling novels that Scott plays, solves crimes “without an arsenal of guns - she just has the might of her spirit,” Scott said when she was back, briefly, this month to do post-production work on the feature length film, which is targeted to be a series on British and American TV.

Being in Botswana reminded her “of what Philadelphia used to feel like to me when I was a kid. It takes a village to raise a child. And everybody watches everybody’s children. And that’s how I grew up. I couldn’t get around the block too far, without some neighbor saying, ‘Jill, go back around the corner now. You know your mother don’t want you around here.’”

Meantime, here's the video for "Hate On Me," in which Scott puts the envious in their place on her new album, The Real Thing, Words & Sounds, Vol. 3.