Jill Scott was at the White House, Too

Lots of nonsense was generated last week over the White House poetry slam night reading by Chicago conscious rapper Common, the goody two shoes MC who Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity have annointed as "controversial" for the first time in his life. And in fact, the brouhaha continues, with Jon Stewart - who last week said that only huffers of "Foxygen," which he defined as "that heady mix of partisan hackery, character assassination and manufactured outrage" would be upset by the performance by the rapper who changed his name from Common Sense - scheduled to debate O'Reilly on the topic on Fox tonight.

But lost amidst all that noise was the appearance at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by another hip-hop soul poet: Jill Scott. Jilly from Philly, who described herself as "geeked" by the idea of apearing at the White House, performed along with Rita Dove, Billy Collins, and Steve Martin, among others. She brought her Macbook along to read from three poems in a 7 minute segment, regally standing up for literacy and against objectification of women, and, yes, saying the words "shiznit" and "ass" aloud at the White House. Scott's new album The Light Of The Sun is due June 21.

Previously: Lykke Li at the TLA