Lauryn Hill, who made one of the greatest albums of the ’90s, is scheduled to take the stage at Amos’ Southend on Saturday night. Doors open at 9. The hip-hop diva actually will go on at … 9:30? 10? 11? Midnight?
If it’s 1 a.m. by the time she breaks into her first song, don’t be surprised. At a recent comeback concert in New York, she kept fans (including soul superstar Prince) waiting for almost four hours. When she finally took the stage, she responded to some boos by saying, “Don’t do that. That’s disrespectful. I spent my entire 20s sacrificing my life to give you love. … I personally know I’m worth the wait.”
The 35-year-old Hill has long been an enigma.
A member of the acclaimed rap group the Fugees from 1992-97, the New Jersey native released a debut solo album in 1998 titled “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” that yielded the No. 1 smash “Doo Wop (That Thing)” and garnered 10 Grammy nominations. It went on to win Album of the Year, beating Madonna’s “Ray of Light.”
And then … she went off the grid, so to speak.
She dabbled in several other art forms, got pregnant, fired her management team, absorbed herself in Bible study, took on a spiritual advisor, and stopped listening to music. She resurfaced briefly for a 2001 MTV Unplugged concert, and then again in the mid-2000s as the Fugees got together for a short-lived reunion.
Which brings us to Saturday night’s concert.
Tickets are $67.76 each including fees, which makes it the most expensive Amos’ show in recent memory. (Average price to see the other upcoming acts on the venue’s schedule: $16.22.)
Will Hill be worth it? Depends, I guess, on just how long we have to wait.
