Lauryn Hill Displays Enormous Talent Reminiscent of Aretha Franklin, Prince, Bob Dylan, and Michael Jackson

MLH Caravan: A Diaspora Calling! Tour
@ The Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver, BC - June 26th, 2016

Woah. She conjured aurally rich, otherworldly melodies complemented by impassioned, soulful singing. Each song grew in intensity, with sporadic breakdowns into mellower grooves before escalating again, culminating into a powerful, emotionally resonant climax. All the while she vehemently conducted her 12-piece band and sound technicians with hand gestures, body movements, and facial expressions, as if her whole being was possessed by an obsessive drive to capture an ineffable, magical, musical perfection. It's as if she's a conduit for a divine source of creative expression from another, higher plain of existence. Lauryn Hill is a monstrous talent, and not a normal person.

Ms. Hill is one of my musical idols, but I'd never had the opportunity to see her perform in person before. I've heard the stories of diva-like behaviour, late arrivals to shows, last-minute cancellations, neurotic behaviour, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and mental illness. But I had to take the risk to see her in the chance that these might be just rumours, and/or that they are things of the past, with the hope that she'd live up to the other tales of her concerts being outstanding showcases of her colossal talent.

An opening DJ hyped up the Queen Elizabeth Theatre's sold-out crowd (of a nearly 3,000 person capacity) with classic '90s HipHop. As his set stretched to an increasingly anxiety-ridden 45 minutes, he threatened to confirm fears that Lauryn wasn't going to show. But then, suddenly, there she was—entering the stage to uproarious cheers. Many in attendance, like me, grew up during the time when Lauryn emerged onto the music scene in the 1990s, first with the Fugees and then as a solo HipHop/R&B artist whose influence on my generation is unparalleled. As such, the enthusiastic audience radiated pure love.

Lauryn opened with a song that I'd never heard before; a beautiful, ethereal melody complemented by her signature throaty, soulful voice singing a hook about being "conformed to love" (which I later discovered is indeed the song's title). The combination of the lyrics with the hypnotic euphony of the music immediately gave me goosebumps and brought tears to my eyes. The mellow groove built to greater intensity throughout the song, resounding with emotional potency. The performance was immediately reminiscent of soul greats like Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin, as Lauryn put it all out there. This opening piece ran about 10 minutes in length, and when it ended I knew the concert was going to be something special. It already felt like an encore performance, yet it was only the first song. Another time I remember thinking that is when I saw Prince in 2011, whose opening number was a similarly profound display that felt worthy of being the closer to an amazing concert. I wondered then how he would be able to sustain that kind of energy throughout an entire concert, but he did. And so did Lauryn, for the duration of the nearly 2-hour show. The richly textured music and inspired singing continued on through the next few numbers; fleshed out versions of songs she'd previously recorded acoustically on her MTV Unplugged album.

The consummate band consisted of a horn section (trumpet, trombone, saxophone), three female backup singers, a drummer, guitarist, bassist, keyboard player, and two DJs, one of whom doubled as an occasional hype man/backup rapper. Lauryn wore an old-style, colonial, aristocratic dress, and for the first half of the show played acoustic guitar while sitting on a Jamaican-style bench, as perhaps some kind of commentary on slavery and the colonization of Jamaica—a country she's deeply connected to since becoming part of the Marley dynasty by having five children with Rohan Marley, one of Bob Marley's sons.

After several soul-inflected songs, she stood up and ripped into some HipHop jams, playing her biggest hits from Fugees and her one official solo album. All outstanding, but with revised melodies and altered tempos, most weren't instantly recognizable. This reminded me of Bob Dylan, whose performances frequently confound listeners expecting faithful reproductions of his famous recordings, only to instead hear considerably different, extended versions in concerts. Some of Lauryn's classics were up to two or three times faster than their original recorded tempo, as she impressively rapped all of the three Fugee members' verses at a frenetic pace. Drum and bass-heavy funk rhythms accelerated to climactic peaks of musical frenzy with each song's prolonged conclusion. Many of these reconfigured songs reached over five minutes in length, some close to ten. In between the raucous soul and funk jams she'd slow it down with harmonious, mesmerizing grooves, casting musical spells with her singing, like some kind of angelic priestess. Her backup singers effectively held it down, accentuating and contrasting Lauryn's lead vocals with repetitive chants and harmonies. In the last third of the show she moved into some cover songs, by Sade, Nina Simone, and then an awesome reggae medley of three Bob Marley tunes, before closing with her hit "Doo Wop (That Thing)".

My excellent 6th-row seats afforded me a great view of her during the performance. On every song she continually gestured to various band members and audio technicians, conducting with an obvious measure of obsessiveness as if bewitched by creative forces. This brought up the stories of her mental illness, and made me think of the common relationship between insanity and genius. She didn't appear insane, mind you, but certainly eccentric and possibly a control freak. But this added to her quality as a beyond normal, exceptional artist. It evoked Michael Jackson, whose innate talent was matched by his peculiarity and personal troubles.  

The lyrical content throughout the evening was thematically righteous, advocating love, justice, revolution, and spiritual growth as much as demonizing injustice, racism, sexism, and hatred. Love was the most common theme of the night, not just in the content of the songs, but in the passionate exuberance with which Lauryn performed, showing that she loves music, creative expression, performing, and loves us all so much by giving it her all onstage. And the audience hung on to every note, showing they love her back, with deafening cheers and applause.

* * *

The songs Lauryn played, in order:

1.  Conformed to Love / (Lauryn Hill)
2.  I Gotta Find Peace of Mind / (Lauryn Hill)
3.  Freedom Time / (Lauryn Hill)
4.  Mystery of Iniquity / (Lauryn Hill)
5.  So Much Things to Say / (Lauryn Hill)
6.  How Many Mics / (Fugees)
7.  Ready or Not / (Fugees)
8.  Fugee-La / (Fugees)
9.  Killing Them Softly / (Fugees/Roberta Flack)
10. Lost Ones / (Lauryn Hill)
11. Ex-Factor / (Lauryn Hill)
12. The Final Hour / (Lauryn Hill)
13. Everything is Everything / (Lauryn Hill)
14. Your Love Is King / (Sade)
15. Jammin' / (Bob Marley)
16. Is This Love / (Bob Marley)
17. Could You Be Loved / (Bob Marley)
18. Feeling Good / (Nina Simone) 
19. Doo Wop (That Thing) / (Lauryn Hill)

• Nik Dobrinsky / Boy Drinks Ink
June 28th, 2016