Ms. Lauryn Hill and the Fugees stormed through Los Angeles this past weekend and made news, along with some beautiful music, in both their downtown LA show on Saturday November 4 at the Crypto Arena and their Kia Forum show on Sunday across town in Inglewood.
The tour is a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the hugely talented and often unpredictable singer/songwriter's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, her 1998 solo debut after spinning off from hugely successful Fugees.
Miseducation was a revelation, ultimately selling over 20 million albums, setting the record for sales from a female rapper and performer.
It also earned her five Grammys in 1999 (Best New Artist, Album of the Year, Best R&B Song, Best R&B Album, and Best Female R&B Vocal Performance) making her the first woman to win that many of the statuettes in a night.
But then, for reasons that remain a mystery, she never made a follow up.
When she goes on tour or plays solo shows, as she has done nearly every year since that album dropped, she usually plays all the songs off the record along with a cover or two and something from her MTV Unplugged 2.0 LP.
She is also been known to be exceedingly tardy to shows occasionally.
The mother of six addressed both of these issues from the Crypto stage, formerly known as Staples Center.
“They say, ‘Oh, she’s late’ and ‘She’s late tonight.’ Yo, y’all lucky I make it on this… stage every night,” she told the capacity crowd in the arena the Lakers and Clippers play in. “I leave my soul on this stage. And I don’t do it because they let me. I do it because I stand here in the name of God."
As for not having a followup to the album she played in its entirety that night - she had something to say about that too.
"God is the one who allows me to do it, who surrounded me with family and community when there was no support when the album sold so many records and no one showed up and said, ‘Hey, would you like to make another one?’” she said. “I went around the world and I played the same album over and over and over and over and over and over again. Because we’re the survivors. And we’re not just the survivors; we’re the thrivers,” she said to applause.
Naturally those sorts of bold statements trended on Twitter throughout the weekend, but Sunday, about a half hour west of Crypto at the Kia Forum, the Lauryn Hill / Fugees show made more news. This time is was solely about the music.
Four tunes into the Fugees set, who pops on stage with a new verse into "Ready or Not" but Lil Wayne, wowing the crowd and the group.
Then Wayne broke into "A Milli" with the trio. Why that 2008 song? Who knows, but he loves closing his full sets with it and even rocked it at this year's MTV VMAs.
Once he left and the show returned to its schedule, a few songs later Cypress Hill came out and did "How I Could Just Kill A Man."
Earlier, during Ms. Hill's set, Nas came out and did two tracks with her that he penned, "Nobody" and "If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)."
Ms. Lauryn Hill & The Fugees continue to tour around the west coast through the middle of this month, then they head east where the tour continues through December 13. Get your tickets on her website.
