It’s hard to understate the level of fame Lauryn Hill carried on her shoulders, that day in July in 2001, when she strode into MTV Studios in Times Square, ready to perform on MTV’s Unplugged series. The show, meant as a storytelling and acoustic live performance, had hosted rappers before (LL Cool J was actually one of the first performers ever), and had artists making appearances that ended up outranking some of their studio material (Nirvana chief among them, but also, uh, Eric Clapton). But Lauryn had something bigger in mind. At the time, she was the most famous rapper on earth not named Eminem--your mom can hum “Doo Wop (That Thing),” ask her--but was in danger of getting left behind as rap became the defining music of the 2000s. Since she had cleaned up at the Grammys in 1999 for Miseducation of Lauryn Hill--she and Outkast remain the only rappers to win an Album of the Year Grammy--she had disappeared in a cloud of rumors and smoke, moving to Jamaica with her partner Rohan Marley (yes, Bob’s son) and apparently had no plans to do a new album anytime soon. Instead of doing her old songs and shitting on the microphone like Nina Simone, Hill wanted to give her listeners something different at Unplugged: a look into the interior life of a performer who made it to the mountaintop of fame, and who found it as empty as the “regular” life she left behind.
Hill在纽约登上舞台,剪去了她覆盖在
“我曾经为你们打扮。现在不再这样了。今天是新的一天,”Hill在Unplugged 2.0开场30秒时说道,她显然意识到即将打破很多关于未来的想法。“[这些歌曲]是关于我经历了什么,我学习了什么,”Hill继续说道,然后开始演唱《Mr. Intentional》,这首歌至少部分是关于财富是一种幻觉以及资本主义社会如何榨干你的血。你可能会把这看作一个隐喻,但Hill是字面意思。这也是为什么Unplugged 2.0在商业上与
这里的插曲——通常Unplugged表演者用来告诉你什么启发了他们在节目中演奏的流行歌曲——在这里用作与观众的直接沟通。在Unplugged 2.0的近25分钟里,Hill担心自己创造了一个不是真实的“她”的形象(“有段时间我只是出现在公众面前,创造了这个公众形象。它把我困住了。我不能做一个真正的人......我必须成为我自己。”)。她谈到了如何获得迪士尼的私人游览,以及幕后的一切是多么的肮脏——类似于艺术家的生活——以及现实中没有“大人物”。她还谈到考虑退出音乐。“我如此热爱的东西怎么变成了我厌恶和憎恨的东西?”,她问道。我们很少能看到音乐的内心独白如此整齐地堆叠在相关的歌曲上。Unplugged 2.0最终感觉像是在实时观看创作歌曲的过程;缝隙在显露,有时甚至不存在。
至于Unplugged 2.0上的歌曲,它们像布道一样响起,从虚伪的灵性、迫害到Ziggy Marley没有完成你们一起写的歌(《I Get Out》)等问题,一头扎进关于上帝本质的深度独白,以及任何“说唱歌手”目录中最温柔的歌曲。《Just Want You Around》应该成为婚礼经典,搭配《I Gotta Find A Piece Of Mind》,这首歌松散地受她与Marley的关系以及她与更高力量的新关系启发。对于那些想要至少一些说唱的人来说,《Mystery of Iniquity》及其著名的合唱部分,拥有关于社会的一些最硬的词句,这一侧是一张Talib Kweli专辑的剪辑(“我们在为什么工作?”确实),是唯一的橄榄枝。但《I Get Out》是这里的终极曲目,一首主题为整个项目服务的歌曲,歌词关于拒绝标签,拒绝被利用,拒绝扮演角色,拒绝盲目追随为你设定的期望。Unplugged 2.0是最为巧妙地执行怪异左场职业变动之一,并且它实时发生。
毫不意外,Unplugged 2.0在发布时主要被评论家埋没了。它被认为是不必要的说教——这本身就是一个滑稽的误读,因为至少从《Doo Wop》开始,Lauryn就一直在说教——作为
但这张专辑被否定的主要原因是音乐评论家总是认为宗教献身是不真诚或滑稽的;没有什么比一个真诚地相信他们唱的关于寻找更高力量的歌曲的人更可怕了。这就是为什么Bob Dylan的Slow Train Coming被认为是他重要经典的一部分,这是为什么大多数人直到他出现在The Life of Pablo上才认识Kirk Franklin,以及为什么海岸的记者每年都能写关于基督教摇滚节的文章,作为可靠的内容填充物。这就是为什么Kanye West想要采样这张专辑;这是一个表演者站在巅峰上,意识到他们追求的名望和财富并没有填补他们内心的空洞。Kanye仍在寻找他在巅峰后的答案,但15年前Lauryn Hill在宗教中找到了她的答案。她还没找到她所寻找的东西,并且因与IRS的纠纷被送进监狱后不得不返回表演——仍未跟进这张专辑。她在能够的时候退出了。
Andrew Winistorfer is Senior Director of Music and Editorial at Vinyl Me, Please, and a writer and editor of their books, 100 Albums You Need in Your Collection and The Best Record Stores in the United States. He’s written Listening Notes for more than 30 VMP releases, co-produced multiple VMP Anthologies, and executive produced the VMP Anthologies The Story of Vanguard, The Story of Willie Nelson, Miles Davis: The Electric Years and The Story of Waylon Jennings. He lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
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