I was introduced to the Fugees by my mother and fell in love with their sound, they had it as a crew, but Lauryn Hill was an outlier whose brand of vocal wizardry breathed fervent flames of fire across any beat that she graced, I hadn’t heard anything like it before.
When Miss Hill dropped Miseducation, I, like many people of my generation, look back on its release as a soundtrack to a very specific period in my life, and I was moved once again with the follow-up MTV unplugged album. It was a performance filled with a rawness that has rarely been matched by any artist of our time. The prospect of hearing any of those songs live has always excited me.
Following a week of torrid reviews, calling her washed-up, desperate, fragile, confused, her renditions of past hits rendered unrecognisable and effectively ruined. But last night I got a chance to see the mercurial talent that is Lauryn Hill for myself.
The band came out an hour and a half after later than scheduled, and began playing with no Lauryn Hill on stage, but then out of nowhere her voice rang out through the speakers of the Brooklyn Bowl – yet she remained unseen. Lucky for me, I was positioned behind the sound desk at the side of the stage and caught her just off stage, on her own, singing to herself mic in hand, as though she was in her bedroom. All the while the crowd, still unaware of where she was, reacted wildly to the sound of her voice, rich and bold as ever.
After a few bars, she stomped out and took command at the front of the stage. Lauryn Hill doesn’t arrive late, she arrives. Everything seemed to be going great until an alarm sound began to ring out, piercing through the band and then the light’s in the venue came up, the band tried to plough on and remain professional, but Lauryn raised her hand and cut the track. I wondered if this was where things were going to fall apart, so soon after her rampant start. But no, she wasn’t having it, the lights went back down, the alarm stopped and she brought the band back in, on beat and on point, like a well drilled marching band. James Brown would have been proud of such a break. However, the technical issues continued, the alarm rang intermittently, lights came on again, but the band played louder, harder.
Lauryn Hill was in the zone, and despite having to frequently gesture to the sound guy to sort out her mix on stage and through her in-ears, she ploughed on. This woman was desperate or fragile, she was hungry and passionately enjoying herself on stage, kicking off her heels at one point to dance around in her white knee high socks and throwing down with her three backing singers as if they were in a house party. Sure some tracks were so reworked it took a couple of lines to catch up, but I genuinely loved her current take on her old classics, infusing them with a Stevie Wonder-esque funk/soul and sprinkling them with the verve of Prince at his finest.
Lauryn Hill doesn’t arrive late, she arrives.“
More playful than preachy, Lauryn declared that each show has to be different: “We create a ground floor, but it can’t be the same every night,” she proclaimed, “it’s like making love, we’ve both got to enjoy it.” And that comment set the tone for the night. She took us on a musical journey through her influences and back catalogue, including a brief solo acoustic guitar set, then singing ‘Peace of mind’ acapella at the request of the crowd. She also included a couple of collaborations old and recent – even jumping on Drake’s reworking of Doo-wop (That thing). As if all of that wasn’t enough she vibed Soul II Soul’s “However do you want me” break from Back To Life as a tribute to our very own Caron Wheeler, then flipped it into Fugees Hit “Ready Or Not” (I’m getting chills as I write this thinking about it).
Tribute was paid to Stevie Wonder as she effortlessly blended Master Blaster into Bob Marley’s Jammin. Then she spent half an hour or so in Marley & The Wailers’ territory, giving us timeless hits such as Could You Be Love. Burt Bacharach’s Close To You was flirted with, as she tried to tell the crowd how much she loved performing in intimate venues, but Lauryn only managed the final line, ruing that she didn’t know the lyrics. It was silly and charming. After pausing to hear the crowd shout and scream further requests, Lauryn sang His Eye Is on the Sparrow, again, acapella, finishing it off by telling us “That was special, that was for you.” Miss Hill, we already knew it. She could have ended the show at midnight, and anticipating that the end was near, many people left accordingly, to catch the last train home. But finished she was not. Lauryn and her gifted band played on, as she wiped sweat from her face with a black tee with the words “Martin Lurther Queen” on it.
She then went on to treat us to some of her new music, arranging the band as they went and continued to play until close to 1am. Who said she didn’t care about her audience? Who said she was only doing this for the money? After what I’ve seen it’s impossible to imagine how an artist can go from disaster to master pretty much over night. There is no way that anyone who witnessed the magnitude of her awesomeness last night could have left Brooklyn Bowl confused or disappointed, as I’ve seen some writers claim following previous shows. Maybe I caught her on a good night, and if that’s the case, I consider myself very fortunate.
In life there are few opportunities to be in the presence of greatness and share in such a special and defining moment. I was lucky enough to catch the Fugees in the mid-nineties at the peak of their success and it is a moment forever etched in my memory. I was in inspired by the greatness of her talent back then, and as I told her after the show, I’ve never seen her better than I saw her last night. She surpassed all expectation and some.
Mercurial talent she may be, but Lauyn Hill is one of the most gifted and important artists and messengers of our time. I’m thankful that I had a chance to witness how a Queen do.
