By Felicia Okoye
For those of you familiar with the Hip Hop Soul trio, The Fugees, you’re bound to also know lead vocalist and Grammy Award Winning musician Lauryn Hill. Following the demise of the Fugees, Lauryn went on to become a formidable solo musician, most notable for her debut (and only) studio album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998)
In her career spanning over 20 years, Lauryn Hill had never performed in Nigeria, until the faithful evening of Sunday 30th August 2015 when a swarm of Lauryn Hill devotees descended upon Eko Hotel, V.I.
Ms Hill’s entry into Nigeria wasn’t without incident. The concert was initially billed to hold three months prior on Friday 1st May. Just hours before that concert was due to start, rumours on the grapevine (twitter) indicated that not only was the show headliner not on stage, she wasn’t in country!
Fast-forward a few months and several apologies later, the concert was reschedule, much to the relief of ticket holders who had already spent up to N1,000,000 for a table.
And now, here we were, an audience of at least 500 people, ready and waiting for the Hip Hop/Soul Queen herself. After what felt like a marathon wait (5 hours after the scheduled start time) Lauryn Hill emerged onto a smoke filled stage like a glorious phoenix at 12.15am.The audience, noticeably irritated by the long delay took a while to so much as cheer, but with each note sang, Lauryn would thaw the icicles of our hearts. The “Ooh La La La” singer served her audience on her own terms, delving into lesser known songs from her MTV Unplugged album, A double CD of acoustic masterpieces which got little commercial recognition and no videos before unleashing the glory of her greatest hits including: Sweetest Thing, Do-Wop and Fugees classics: Ready or Not and Killing Me Softly.
Interestingly, almost all of the songs were performed with entirely different melodies to the studio version that most fans would be used to. This, rather than dampening the concert experience, heightened it with new found musicality that demonstrated just what a renaissance woman she is.
The two hour concert of sonic gold was backed by13-piece army including a formidable string and horn section and sprightly backup singers. As Lauryn raced through each track (seemingly determined to win our hearts with music, not small talk), the band convoluted into a harmonious unit- taking the songs to new levels through intricate melodies.
Despite the numerous delays, the Lauryn Hill concert was something close to perfection. Soul-filled, raw and passionate- it really was worth the wait.
