Lauryn Hill

by Tim Whitaker

Lauryn Hill
MTV Unplugged 2.0
COLUMBIA

Where oh where has this Fugee girl been? Wacked, cracked, emotionally hijacked? Or has she simply gone away and been reeducated after having been miseducated? On this recorded session, she says of the media, "The view is I'm emotionally unstable--like you aren't?" True that. This remarkable new double-disc live set--recorded last summer (Hill's first release in four years)--is raw, messy, disturbing, poignant, emotional, but above all else, brilliant. Gone are all the requisite phat/fly trappings. Instead we have Hill and her guitar on an unadorned stage--"a hip-hop folksinger," she jokes as she reels off raspy and sometimes sniffly self-authored songs, one after another, many lacking titles. Interspersed are rambling monologues about conceit and God and the exhaustion of "fronting" every night in the name of fame and show business. Hill takes listeners--and viewers of the accompanying MTV Unplugged special--on an expressive high-risk exploration with no net, exhausting everyone who's along for the ride and culminating early with "I Gotta Find Peace of Mind," an emotionally desperate hymn. Just 28, Lauryn Hill--mother, spiritualist, rap chanteuse turned balladeer--is allowing us inside, way inside, where reality has no place to hide. This is no calculated record industry ploy. It's far too unvarnished for that. And whether it pays off traditionally, with cash and lucrative record deals, seems to matter not at all to the performer. If Lauryn Hill's future journey is a safe one, and that is no sure bet, her career is destined to be one for the ages. This performance will be among those aficionados reach for to show when the shit got really deep. A
Lauryn Hill Unplugged 2.0 airs on MTV Fri., May 3, 10pm.