![]() ![]() By the final verse, her audience is left breathless and uncertain if the entire song is a metaphor for being too compromising with one’s artistic integrity or an actual cautionary tale against sexual exploration. Progressing past what should have been enough of a vocal warmup, Hill introduces the next song “Adam Lives in Theory,” a dramatic narrative of sexual exploits that she delivers while seeming to painfully suppress becoming emotionally overwhelmed. Her newfound folksiness appeared to be an interesting complement to her potent lyrics, which were still a tad screechy throughout the first song. ![]() Interesting nonetheless, the opening song draws multiple applause from the crowd and proved impressive for all who laid witness to the multi-talented phenomenon, whose resume already transcended genres, as she continued to check off boxes on her journey toward full musical mastery. Intentional.” Seconds into the song, it’s clear that her vocals at the time were not as clean as they were for her gospel duet “His Eye is on the Sparrow” alongside Tanya Blount when she stole the show in the film Sister Act 2 and its accompanying soundtrack almost a decade earlier. Once she finished laying the ground rules for her performance, her raspy vocals finally set in over the acoustic guitar chords of a song entitled “Mr. ![]() She prefaced her set by confiding to the live audience that she no longer gets fancied up for her performances, offering the disclaimer that we were about to witness a performance perhaps as flawed as brilliant. Indeed, loyalists waited intently for another dose of Hill’s special brand of edutainment and were understandably eager to gain more insight from the current generation’s songwriting equivalent of Bob Dylan.įrom the onset, Hill set the tone of the JUnplugged performance at MTV Studios in Manhattan with a slight awkwardness. Her return was highly anticipated in light of the nearly three-year sabbatical she took following the 41st Annual GRAMMY Awards ceremony in early 1999, where she picked up a record-breaking five trophies in multiple categories, while coming close to running the table at other award ceremonies that year. Moreover, she elevated the music world’s consciousness, serving as a major counter balance to the overtly sexualized and often superficial songs dominating hip-hop and R&B airways in the late ‘90s. Having created magic twice-first as one third of Fugees, adding high level lyricism and mind boggling harmony to their 1996 album The Score, and next with her colossal 1998 solo debut The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill-L-Boogie raised the bar musically for all of her contemporaries. Not knowing what to expect from the casually dressed icon, who accessorized her denim with an acoustic guitar for the MTV Unplugged No 2.0 concert which became a full-length live album, fans of Lauryn Hill’s previous work pulled in close, wanting to be among the first to witness her next stroke of genius.Īfter selling an unbelievable volume of records and igniting a frenzy comparable to the ‘60s’ Beatlemania, the super emcee slash incredible songstress-actress-songwriter had amassed a body of work already putting her in the conversation of musical elite. When the quintessential artist of the ‘90s delivered her first offering of new material early into the first quarter of the next decade, everyone stopped to listen.
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