Jill Scott won acclaim for her 2000 debut album, Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds, and fans took the album title to heart, reveling in Scott's honest poetry. But after four years since its release, now listeners might be simply asking: Where is Jill Scott?

"I took off some time to just be," Scott says from her home before hitting the road to preview material from her forthcoming album, Beautifully Human -- Words and Sounds Vol. 2, due August 31st. "[To] be with my husband, be with my family, relax a little, write, think, soul search, because my life changed after the first album came out. Everything was new and different."

The fifteen-track album finds Scott in a sultry mood, reflecting on the state of affairs in her life over a smooth, intimate instrumental backdrop. The album's title comes from meditating on life's changes.

"I just started really paying attention to myself, checking out my personality flaws and physical flaws and all the things that are put together in the universe to make me myself," Scott says. "The lyrics and the words and the songs mostly came from my perspective as a woman and a relationship, of course, because being married is interesting. I've found some things out since I've hit my thirties that I thought, 'Hmm, might as well share that too.'"

In between albums, Scott's kept active with an extracurricular roster of projects including acting stints on the UPN sitcom Girlfriends, and a Showtime movie Cave Dwellers. She also wrote a book of poetry entitled The Minutes, the Moments, the Hours, due in April 2005. Scott says the book stems from "having conversations with people and them saying that life is about time," she says. "'You don't want to miss your time' . . . And I say that life is more than just those moments, those hours -- it's all that stuff in between that makes a great life."

That sense of temporality is apparent on Beautifully Human, as well, with its narrative framework reflecting Scott's love of storytelling. "I like to tell in-depth stories, so that's still there," Scott says. But the album also feels more groove-based, with songs floating on airy keyboards and old-school funk refrains, like the celebratory lead single "Golden," which Scott says is about personal and political liberty. The brassy song finds Scott singing, "I'm living my life like it's golden," her sanguine message offset by a fleet of backup harmonies.

"The song is pretty simple," she says. "I'm paying attention to what's happening in our government. I think that a lot of people have basically put their freedom somewhere on the shelf. As Americans, it is our right to be able to speak out. It is our right to be frustrated openly and say so without fear.

"Part of [the song] is where we are as a nation of people, and a part of that is my personal being over thirty -- I'm thirty-two-years-old-and I feel more like a woman," she continues. "I feel more beautiful. I feel stronger. I'm living my life like it's important. Like it matters. Like it's something that I can polish and look and everyday and say, 'Ooh, that's nice.'"

Scott is currently on tour with a six-piece band previewing material from Beautifully Human.

Jill Scott tour dates: 7/23: Washington, D.C., 9:30 Club
7/27-28: New York, S.O.B's
7/30: Philadelphia, Theater of the Living Arts
8/1-8/2: Chicago, House of Blues
8/5: Milwaukee, Potawatomi Casino
8/7: Detroit, Saint Andrews
8/10: Toronto, Guvernment