Lauryn Hill

I need more practice...

Mixtape master J. Period has teamed up with Hip-Hop diva Lauryn Hill to
present "The Best of Lauryn Hill" (hosted by Lauryn Hill). The mixtape, a
double CD collection, features over 80 tracks of remixes, concert
performances, personal commentary & interviews from Lauryn herself. For
more visit: http://www.jperiod.com.

And what category of crazy are we putting her? Whitney? Brian Wilson? Syd Barrett? All of these could be properly called bat-shit crazy.

but did she throw her hands in the air?

Over the past few years, it has been speculated that Hill has grown mentally unstable and is being influenced by a less than ethical "spiritual leader" who allegedly has taken great sums of money for his leadership. It is also reported that Hill referred this spiritual leader to the currently embattled comedian Dave Chapelle.

Looks like Pappawheelie was OTM...

yep, still crazy

The sad thing is it really shouldn't be crazy for her to work her way into something new, or even to be a little demanding or ramshackle about the process -- there just seems to be some intense crazy involved in her sitting around for years doing it and shooting off in a million directions and getting worse and worse at what she could do before and just not getting anything worthwhile done. I mean, geez, she could be the biggest musical genius in the world -- it makes no difference if she can't get it together to finish anything.

Her new song "Lose Myself" is wonderful.

Indeed.

Lauryn Hill doing afro-pop/reggae-infused soul sounds like it should be really good.

huh that lose myself song is cool...different.

So...Ms. Lauryn Hill (billed as such) is playing at this hippie festival in Sonoma County. Coheadliners: Slightly Stoopid. 1-day pass: $35. Do I buy tickets? Could be an interesting meltdown or ACTUALLY AWESOME.

She played here (as Sly & Robbie's singer!) a few months ago, and there didn't seem to be any outbreaks of lunacy reported.

was she where bizarre clown makeup?

where = wearing

Jeeeeeeesus that line-up. Surprised these guys aren't playing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQe4XVrJFGQ

What a pretentious jerk is Ms. Hill.

http://nyti.ms/ezt1T6

It's astonishing, her self-righteousness. She was three hours late.

Going to see Lauryn Hill in 2010 is pretty much asking for it.

nothing about that story surprises me at all

To the crowd she was both thankful and indignantly apologetic. “I spent my entire 20s sacrificing my life to give you love. So when I hear people complain, I don’t know what to tell you,” she said. “I personally know I’m worth the wait.”

fuck OFF.

Any ILXORs there?

hmm she apparently has a show booked in mpls and i was thinking of going

Don't do it

the article makes her seem sad and lost (tho she also seems reprehensible).

saw her at rock the bells and it was pretty sad

Wonder if the keyboard player's still in the band.

Um. See? Here's the thing. Having read all of those articles and live reviews, a bunch of my friends and I bought tickets to see her tonight in Montreal anyway. And I don't know what was different about today but it was astounding?

Doors at 9:30, DJ at 11, Lauryn took the stage just after midnight. The first couple songs were the refixes of older stuff - a metalled up version of Ex Factor, and then a smooth post-rock sort of take on it, an extended gospel-y When It Hurts So Bad, rawk take on Lost Ones, reggae version of Final Hour. The vocals were occasionally scratchy but mostly impeccable. To Zion, and then a big note-perfect Fugees flashback, which included a jammy How Many Mics?, Flamingos' "I Only Have Eyes For You" into Zealots, the O.G. Ready or Not and a reggae Fu-Gee-La and Killing Me Softly, and Turn Your Lights Down Low and Doo Wop to close.

She was in a pretty great mood the entire 2 hour set. Lots of crowd banter, lots of jokes with her band and with us. Seemed very thankful that we were there. Appreciative, even? Dancing and grooving and promised to come back soon.

So...maybe this was an anomaly, but if she can be like this more often, basically, Lauryn Hill is BACK so far as I'm concerned.

i think the ny times review was real positive, despite her being so late

By all accounts her First Avenue show was fantastic--wish I'd been able to go. She hung out with fans and posed for photos afterward.

I think a lot of the complaints have to do with people like her drastically changed/funk-metal versions of her old shit or not. I went to Rock The Bells and was totally :D and everyone around me was o_O

i know someone - an old-skool r&b fan unlikely to be into anything like "funk-metal" - who went to her atl show and adored it.

gonna write a Twilight Zone spec script in which one day all music suddenly sounds like Infectious Grooves, and Whiney, the only happy man left on earth, has a bad ear infection and loses his hearing

See, that too. And I'm not contesting anybody's right to their tiny violins. But I sympathize with her. It has long been a Big Frustration Of Mine that they don't teach you (or at least, they didn't teach me or many of my friends) in high school, like right away, "this is how taxation works. Get ready to be taxed," because I think many people get to age 23, age 25 (age 32 in once instance I can think of) having no idea that they need to file! I didn't know until I was 24, I thought paying taxes was something people did when buying groceries.

one of the first things my parents did when I got my first job in high school was show me a 1040-EZ, even though I didn't make enough money to be required to file

it's true, though, that none of this was actually covered in school as far as I can remember

It's times like this when I'm relieved to have an accountant for a father-in-law.

It has long been a Big Frustration Of Mine that they don't teach you (or at least, they didn't teach me or many of my friends) in high school, like right away, "this is how taxation works. Get ready to be taxed," because I think many people get to age 23, age 25 (age 32 in once instance I can think of) having no idea that they need to file!

wow didn't know they need to file at all? that's...special. when i didn't file, i sure as hell knew i was doing something wrong that had consequences.

but i totally agree that it should be, like, a course you take in high school or a major part of Home Ec or something.

it's unbelievable that it's not taught in schools tbh - it's not in the uk either - and most people don't need to learn about the logistics and paperwork because in normal jobs tax is just deducted straight out of your salary. when i went freelance i was completely unaware that anything would be different, and then when i realised it was i had zero idea what to actually do, who to contact etc. i still don't feel like i 100% understand how it works

yeah! me too! I'm really fortunate, my boss at age 24, when he heard I hadn't ever filed, he got damn fatherly at me "what do you mean you don't file? do you not walk on these sidewalks? do you not drink from these faucets?!" and sat at my desk while I googled "how do you pay taxes" and I was like whoa! Best boss ever.

in the US if you have a normal job it's deducted automatically too but you STILL have to file a tax return every year

I'd heard inklings of it from people-- "Oh I just got my tax return back!"-- but considering this was a hand-to-mouth, didn't own a computer period of my life, it just seemed like something rich people did

yeah one of my housemates after college was a carpenter who did mainly contract work, and it was a red-tape nightmare for him to do his taxes every year.

Add daily 8-hour commutes, bankrolling accommodations and travel, 10 different kinds of currency and 14 countries to file in and you've got an idea of the situation. My spreadsheets literally had a column for Czech kroner. And another for zloty. And four more for ISK, DOK, NOK and SEK. Happily I did't go to Asia until the next year. I'm not complaining! I chose this life! Bergen was beautiful etc.

(hug)

http://pitchfork.com/news/52540-listen-lauryn-hill-consumerism/

I can't tell if I even like this or not. It has the stench of slam poetry all over it, but the track itself is pretty damn good.

whoa i missed "consumerism" at the time. that's pretty powerful stuff there.

it's ace, isn't it? it's like she's gone all Consolidated or something.

absolutely packed with ideas

j0rdan said it well - http://www.thefader.com/2013/11/28/live-lauryn-hill-bowery-ballroom-prison-homecoming-show-revie/#/0

It wasn’t until the encore that Hill stopped to speak at any length, and it was after she performed her most recent song, “Consumerism,” over the beat for Busta Rhymes’ “Don’t Touch Me (Throw Da Water On ‘Em).” “Consumerism” is almost impossibly knotty in both meaning and structure, and as Hill rapped the song her mouth was unable to keep up with the words firing out of her brain. She recognized this, and noted after the track’s conclusion that her new material (including “Neurotic Society [Compulsory Mix]”) was so wordy because it is the product of bottled-up emotion. She mimed the seething rattle of a machine gun, intimating that her voice is a weapon that not even she can completely control.

Then she recited some of the lyrics to “Consumerism” slowly and with no beat, as if she was doing spoken word. Modernism has created modern prisons/ Neo-McCarthyisms, new colonialisms… Impositions, superstitions, violence and contradictions/ False pretense and no convictions. This is dense and theoretical stuff, but one only needs to know names like Edward Snowden or Renisha McBride to argue that “Neo-McCarthyisms” and false pretenses and no convictions are more pertinent topics of discussion than Macklemore’s self-gratifying stances or Lorde’s distaste for gold teeth and champagne. But then again, Ms. Hill had to pause and spell it out for even her most fervent fans.

the unplugged album's pretty dense and unwieldy too. i think i wrote one of the few positive reviews of that.

that last paragraph is terrific

haaa i remember that review!!! if it hadn't been the era when you had to pay to hear music i'd've listened to it on the strength of that

xp

has she given any interviews since leaving prison?

xp thank you! i was in a very emo place when i wrote it

thanks guys

one thing that she seemed to be hinting at is that her two new tracks are more like necessary venting and not a blueprint for all her material going forward

we'll see tho. i feel like radio would still welcome her back if she put out a song that was more r&b

this just in: lauryn hill still lucid, powerful, very much not crazy

https://soundcloud.com/mslaurynhill/black-rage-sketch

(thread title pisses me off more than any other on ilx and really should be changed)

Yeah, this one and "Courtney Love - Cash Cow or Evil Bitch" are pretty rank.

yeah if I wanted to see women excoriated and insulted en masse i'd open a tennis thread

Yeah, sorry about that. Change away. Been a few years.

The floor is open for suggestions.

lex otm

Lauryn Hill Practically Perfect in Every Way

How about just "Lauryn Hill" please that way we could leave out the virgin/whore complex entirely.

wait where does "crazy" fall on the virgin/whore axis I am confused

somewhere between "literal-minded" and "specious gendered character judgments are the Same Bad Things"

bump

it's sort of infuriating to see the threads that are getting 100 new answers right now while no one cares about this song

i think the lyrics are very powerful and i love lauryn hill but there's not much that can revive "my favorite things" for me today except for maybe coltrane

i remember thinking the same of "killing me softly" once upon a time

not sure what to say abt "black rage", lex, other than that it's quite moving. love the background ambience, kids voices & such, that froggy bass tone, the way her voice breaks on "denial of selves". would love to hear a more fully developed version, but the intimacy of the sketch would likely be lost.

An ilxer reviewed it for Pitchfork and its on Pitchfork's best tracks list for 2014. Maybe if someone talks about it on a Pitchfork thread it will get more attention

I got bored about halfway through

it's sort of infuriating to see the threads that are getting 100 new answers right now while no one cares about this song

are you seriously bummed that the feebs of ilm aren't dribbling their "insight" all over this great track? it doesn't matter.

yeah I'm sure glad those feebs aren't here

endless permutations of lol she is crazy get a dude down

all I'm saying is you can have a perfectly nice thread without looking askance at all the people who AREN'T posting

still think this is her most slept on post-miseducation track https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LN8wDMtJrM

Because I'm doing remote supply/substitute for a grade 6 class today, and I was looking for some birthdays to commemorate, I can tell you that Lauryn Hill is 46 and Stevie Nicks is 73.

i’m halfway through “jerusalem” and good fucking god the unplugged album is terrible so far. but apparently it was therapeutic for her so that makes it ok.

mr. snide

tbf it isn't very good.

I remember loving it at the time, but my dad had just died and I was in the market for something so anguished and ready to bleed. I don't have any inclination to hear it now, and tbh a number of her subsequent concerts, which have veered from moments of inspiration among waves of dross and, well, unbroken waves of dross, have eaten up my tolerance for her, though a friend was recently raving about a Nina Simone tribute record she was involved with.

i'm halfway through a mr snrub revive and good fucking god it's terrible so far. but apparently it was therapeutic for him so that makes it ok.