Lauryn Hill has loudly (and justifiably) been declared a brilliant artist already in her young career, and MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 will do nothing to dissuade anyone. This double-CD acoustic set contains snippets from her debut album, but most of it is new material that Hill performs with raw, shockingly honest intensity. Coming on the heels of a well-publicized period of depression and unhappiness for the ex-Fugees singer, Hill's reenergized outlook is plainly evident in this stripped-down performance--it's basically just Hill and her unplugged guitar--as well as the highly spiritual nature of the material.
Cutting across musical styles from bossa nova ("Just Like Water") to Marley-esque rebel songs ("Oh Jerusalem," "The Conquering Lion," "Freedom Time"), the singer's voice is throaty and rough throughout, giving the performance an earthy, heartfelt pull. It's a deeply personal performance, filled with blistering social commentary and the evils of self-delusion while detailing her ongoing attempt to escape from the public persona her fame has created. In destroying her old artistry, she discovers a new creative force, yielding a mesmerizing and enchanting classic.
Let's relate Lauryn's concert to our study so far. Is this black music? Does her music speak rebellion? Use lyrics to illustrate your point. How does Lauryn's music tie back to the discussions we've had about African music, the banjo, and jazz music. DO any messages resonate with you in particular? (300 words).
15 comments:
I Love This Video Lauryn is a amazing person the song "Master of Inquerty" She said "It's the mystery of Inequity. Said it's the misery of Inequity Said it's the history of Inequity When it all All falls down Telling you all it all falls down".
This song help me though a lot of problems because it was times when I was "Willing" of giving up. I learned the hard way about life. And I think its safe to say this song help me understand little something called life. In the video Lauryn Also Said " Where Human And we all make mistake, always be yourself". Listening to that statement makes me think because people always want you to be yourself and how can you be yourself when you as person does know yourself everyone always find something new about yourself MOSTLY Everyday.
I believe that this is black music in the sense of who she is speaking and appealing to. When she is talking to her audience, she comes from a black perspective to a primarily black crowd. When she is singing, she gives a black type of texture that relates black people. For example, in one song, which I don't remember the name of, she says, "you can't hold me in these chains", and I got the sense that she was trying to say that black people specifically can't be contained or limited to anything. However, I think that this music speaks to anyone, and should be taken as such.
In "The Mystery of Iniquity", she goes in a nearly breathless yet poetic and rebellious verse where she is speaking out against a lot of the things going on in the U.S. and the government, as well as making statements about life and the world. This is so rebellious, because not a lot of emcees let alone a female one were speaking about issues and ideas like these, and not a lot of people understood it, as they were not ready to receive all of that information at a time when people were close-minded. I also noticed she kept saying be free, which was something that was very powerful and continued to resonate with me every time she said it.
I believe that Lauryn Hill is one of the more influential and powerful artists that I've heard in a long time. In the song "Mystery of Iniquity", she speaks about the struggles of not believing what reality means in our world. The line "yall cant handle the truth in a court room of lies, purges to jurors witnesses despise" talks about how people side against the people who are in power but don't outwardly express their disappointment. Lauryn completely represents Rebellion because all of her messages in "Mystery of Iniquity speaks out against every corrupt belief in society today. The constant repeating of "be free" makes me believe that people are enslaved in the prisons that our world has created for us or the own imprisonment that we've created in our own minds.
i love the hole video. i also love all the songs because i could tell that she speaks from the soul the hole time she is singing. but i mostly liked the song "Water" because i think that our lives are like flowing water. also when she talks about how god took her out and there was a point in time where she had to stop her music and then she ended up writing a song that talks about rebelling but she wasn't sure weather to let the song on the demo because she wasn't sure people would take it the right way i also like that song.
In my opinion, Lauryn Hill is a great mind no doubt. I never really was a huge fan of hers previously, but that was simply just ignorance to good music. She captures the "life of a black person" in this video and, to me, she defines black people. Her creativity uniquely outlines what she has been through to a point where I thought "wow". She said an interesting line which was "If we're not supposed to turn around, why is there a steering wheel?". For me in particular this line stood out because I've made some mistakes and I fell short of an "image" as did Lauryn and I felt like some people didn't want to believe that I was recovering from those mistakes and they held it against me.
I think I liked this so much because she gave us who she was and is. It didn't seem fake and there are a numerous amount of people, including me, who can relate to her. She made me think: should or are our (blacks) lives rebellious?
I believe Lauryn Hill is very passionate about her music. However the music in this album is not something that i normally listen too nor is it my forte. I would have never listened to this album on my free time because I am not really interested in music like this. I do believe she is a very talented woman and she has potential. But she is not an artist that i am very fond of.
To me all of her songs sounded the same. They all had the same message to me. Good music comes from the heart and thats obviously where hers came from. But i still cannot wrap my brain around her songs. I do not see myself listening to her music again in the future.
I think Lauryn Hill is among the most talented of the 90's and early 2000's. She has a very creative mind and is very influential to the music industry. While I am a fan of Lauryn Hill and I have her entire Miseducation album on my phone, I just don't think this album was necessary. However, I do agree with the message being sent out to listeners and fans, I think WASTING an entire album is not only being excessively redundant but its just not needed. The message being portrayed is a good thing and making it known that there is something going on with the black race stuff.
I just think that the whole hour and a half of the concert strumming the same chords and rhythms and crying isn't going to cut it. Sometimes celebrities need to refrain from this whole jesus stuff and isn't going to change the world. She went from being this hardcore female, somebody I used want to be like, to this weak, psychopathic jesus maniac. Sorry if that offends anyone but it's the truth.
I was not a big fan of this album. I really miss Lauryn's early style, and when she was with the Fugees. I thought this album was far too dry and her points where repeated over and over. It really had a tendency to drag on. She said over and over that she is a new person who is just finding herself. She said that all of her old songs were fabrications of the version of reality that the public loves, but not the truth. I really liked her old lyrics. They were very real. This album was very raw and hard to relate to. Her lyrics were very jumbled and confusing. I did like some of what she sang about. One line that really stood out for me that she said was "If we're not supposed to turn around, why is there a steering wheel?" I still believe that she kind of shot down her fans. She claimed too much that she was only an empty front and that now she is real. I felt that she was being far to defensive on this point that now she is becoming more fake, and not the other way around.
I really enjoyed the Lauryn Hill's concert. It was a really great look at a star's return to fame after some different struggles throughout her life. It was said that she was often depressed, but this concert was showing her returning with a vengeance.
I think that Lauryn Hill's music is black music because some black music speaks of rebellion. Many of Lauren's songs speak of rebellion. It seems like Lauryn decided that her recent depression was a way of sparking rebellion.
One prime example is the song "I Find It Hard to Say (Rebel)," partially because the song is called "Rebel," but also because of certain lyrics in the song. For example, during the chorus, she says "...and what I got to say is rebel..." She also says things like "Why don't you rebel?" and "We must destroy in order to rebuild." This relates to what we have talked about in class because we talk about how rebellion can be violent, and the lyric "We must destroy in order to rebuild" proves that rebellion can be violent.
This album just didn't cut it! I'll admit some songs were decent but some were just god awful. I think the real problem this album had was lack of variety. When I say lack of variety I mean that in a rhythmic sense, lyrically it was what i expected from her because she's ...different and that's always interesting to hear and try to comprehend.
i thought Lauryn Hill's unplugged concert was exceptional. i really like the messages and feelings relayed by her. There is only one question that i wish to address today, does this music speak of rebellion?
i dont think Lauryn hill's music (in this concert) spoke of rebellion. i think she could've chosen more meaning full words to match with her titles to make her music speak of rebellion. but, i do think her quotes and what she was saying in between the songs spoke of rebellion. "the only way to get out is through confrontation." said lauryn as she spoke of how she had to fight within herself and the stereotypical society of how she had to find her "true" self. she goes on to say that we need to trust our own judgement better than anyone else, "whenever we submit our will to someone else's opinion a part of us dies." i do not think Lauryn Hill's music speaks of rebellion but i do think that her quotes and what she says in between her songs speak of some type of rebellion.
I would say that Lauryn's music definitely constitutes as black music even if she may not have meant it to be. For me black music speaks to the unique experience of African-Americans. Her music seems to draw from the black experience in America with quotes like " leaving his descendants to work it out", relating to the fact that the children of slaves were also forced to be slaves. Another relevant quote is "say goodbye to this decaying social situation" which could refer to the way African-Americans were treated after they were set free. I Doubt that she meant to say say such culturally relevant things in her songs though.
I think her songs do speak rebellion but against whom, I'm not completely sure. I agree with the person who reviewed the concert in saying that the lyrics seemed very cryptic at times. For example "Focused on the shadow" in Oh, Jerusalem could refer to being stuck up in the past of the injustice of American slavery which would mean the songs title could mean getting to the place African-Americans belong just like the idea of the promised land. This could also take on various other meanings which could only pertain to Lauryn or even to other cultures. I think she most likely was talking about a rebellion inside herself and was not talking about a wider scale rebellion simply because of how she talked in between songs. She seemed to be venting, I feel she has the right to, on all the problems in her life exclusively.
Something that resonated with me was the quote "The only wealth I have to give is non-material." This line affected me because I remember my father telling me that when his father died he inherited very little from him. This made me think about how when Africans first came to this country they had to start over entirely and had nothing material to hold onto and only had each other to rely on.
This video show a lot of her impressing herself. her songs describe about her life and its so deeply and its tells us as lister that we can understand were she is coming from because what she been through is enough for her to express herself like that. and I'm not going to lie and it s was touching even though I'm not one of her biggest fans and i don't listen to her music on a normal basics . but this really tell a lot . i believe that this black music in the sense is she speaking and appealing to. in the mystery of iniquity , she goes in nearly breathless yet poetic to rebellions .
I think Lauryn's music is black music. When we talk of black music we say that it is the experience of black people in the Ancients times. Her album spoke the experiences and the emotions of slavery. The past affected her life in a huge way and I think her music speaks rebellion. After reading the hateful review of Lauryn's new album I understand where fans would feel abandoned that she changed her music. I didn't understand think it was fair for the writer to ask questions like "Where is your soul?" when all she did was create music that actually spoke of who she was a person. Lauryn didn't want to be the pop artist that media made up of it. Therefore, with the new album and her new look.. she betrayed just that
I think that Lauryn hill's music is mainly apart of "black music" because of the rhythmic styles in all her songs, along with the way she sings it.Also one thing that makes it clearly black music is that vocaltily that she places in her songs. In many of her song she say phases of rebellion like in Oh Jerusalem she says"search for a better life or an solution for problem and she has a whole song about rebellion called I find it hard to say;rebel. So all together this ties into what we talk about in African music by the sound and tone of her music and the reasons she made the songs were to express her emotions and say how she feeling or her view of the world is being lived.
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