Every once in a while you hear some music news that makes you a little hopeful. Announced this week, much beloved hip-hop impresario, Nas, will be on tour this fall joined by his 90’s “If I Ruled the World” partner, Lauryn Hill.
This is good news because frankly we’ve been worried about Ms. Lauryn (LBoogie) Hill for quite a few years. After a mega hit album in the late 1990’s, Lauryn fell into relative obscurity save for the infrequent appearance where frankly many of us were concerned about her sanity. The most telling of all, a showing on MTV’s Unplugged where it looked and sounded as though she was simply overwhelmed by emotion, inner demons, or all out strife, and add to that a few, rare public performances where something just seemed a bit off. Sigh. Shake our damn heads.
While it’s hard to ignore the seemingly tabloid fodder surrounding her personal life where we don’t really want to speculate or add more fuel to the rumor mill when it comes to the father of her children, Rohan Marley, or whatever the hell Wyclef is doing with his new tell-all book where it looks like he airs a lot of old dirty laundry about his and Lauryn’s relationship — and there are her recent troubles with the IRS — we know that these are things that can elevate an artist when they finally want to channel it all into their music. Aside from that, as an audience we’re no strangers to performers and their eccentricities. We can all deal with the eccentricity of life, if it seems that the performer is consistent, and is still able to showcase their genius when they get outside of their own heads.
This is exactly what we want and hope we can find again in Lauryn. We’re hoping she can put aside all career-curbing issues such as “over-commercialization,” “pop-culture cannibalism,” “greed,” “false entitlement,” and “manipulation” that she’s indicted has plagued her chronically, and find some balance, maybe with the help of another veteran in the game, Nas. Nas has had his own fair share of tribulations and trials — from a once floundering career, where it seemed he needed to find himself — to accepting his life and its truth — to making a comeback with a real ode to honest to goodness hip-hop as his latest effort, Life is Good, can attest. Take a listen to “Bye Baby.” This latest album is earnest and heartfelt and doesn’t shy away from his flaws and the awkwardness of relationships with his ex-wife, daughter, or himself, but also uses the music and sound that Nas grew up with and thrived in. Sure, it may sound a bit old school, but that is just what makes it so poignant and effective.
So, we’re hoping Nas can help Lauryn this fall find some of that in herself, so that she too, can come back and share more of her genius with a new generation of burgeoning hip-hop heads and those of us who never forgot her.
The tour starts on Oct. 29 and will feature new music from Hill who also has a new single, “Black Rage,” dropping this fall.
