Source: Christopher Polk / Getty
Lauryn Hill had a stern message at her Nov. 4 concert in Los Angeles for the haters who say she gets on stage for her concerts way too late.
The iconic musician addressed the backlash regarding her consistent tardiness for performances by arguing that fans should be grateful to see her grace the stage at all.
“Yo, y’all lucky I make it on this blood ras stage every night,” she told the crowd. “I leave my soul on this stage. I don’t do it because they let me do it — I do it because I stand here in the name of God, and I do it. God is the one who allows me to do it — who surrounded me with family and community when there was no support.”
Elsewhere during her schpiel, she emphasized her perseverance despite no one asking her to make another solo album after The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which was her only solo studio project. The iconic MC flexed her musical finesse and noted that the success of that album has given her the ability to tour the world and perform its songs since its release in 1998.
“When the album sold so many records, and no one showed up and said, ‘Hey, would you like to make another one?’ So I went around the world, and I played the same album over and over and over and over again. Because we are survivors,” Hill stated. “And we’re not just survivors, we’re thrivers.”
The multitalented musician addressed her tardiness during the Crypto.com Arena stop in Los Angeles — which was on the 25th Anniversary Tour of her 1998 solo record.
That evening, the mother of six was also joined on stage by her Fugees bandmates, Wyclef Jean and Pras Michél.
Black X users weren’t feeling Hill’s response to her chronic tardiness or the rhetoric around her sophomore album that never happened.
Fans issues with Hill’s late arrivals have come up in the past, and the artist has addressed it before.
In May 2016, she shared a lengthy Facebook post that essentially said concert start times came second to when her “energy” was aligned to go on stage and give fans her best.
At the time, the “Nothing Even Matters” singer was on her MLH Caravan: A Diaspora Calling! Tour.
“For every performance that I’ve arrived to late, there have been countless others where I’ve performed in excess of two hours, beyond what I am contracted to do, pouring everything out on the stage… My true audience knows emphatically that I care. It isn’t possible to affect people in any deep and meaningful way without putting sacrificial time in.”
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