Post by gest21 on Apr 26, 2011 13:58:21 GMT 1
Interesting Review by guitarist/violinist Amy Klein of the band Titus Andronicus who played at Coachella
My show is finished, all the equipment is loaded back into the van, I have signed records at a special tent, and now I have that impossible commodity known among touring musicians as “free time.” I am exhausted, the adrenaline rush of the morning fading by the minute, but I haul ass over to the main stage to witness the comeback of the queen of New Jersey, Ms. Lauryn Hill. Now that there are so few women in rap, Nicki Minaj’s album having missed its opportunity to transcend pop and pink and stereotypes about what sells, and Missy Elliott gone missing for years, and Lil Kim without an album or even a single (except that recent, Nicki-bashing stuff), it’s up to Lauryn to bring back the power of hip hop feminism. It’s a difficult task for any performer, let alone one who’s shied away for the spotlight and has been known as bat-shit crazy by everyone, even her biggest fans, for the past decade.
I, however, have the sneaking suspicion that what we call crazy in a woman is usually what we’d call genius in a man. When men rampage wildly against the conventions of our society, or rant at length about the errors of our culture, industry, and religion, we call them interesting or arresting cultural characters, or in, Charlie Sheen’s case, we give them a national comedy tour. When a woman does the same thing, we call her a diva, or sometimes just weird and annoying. See: the backlash against M.I.A.
Actually, the line between crazy and genius for women has always been quite fine, as Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar has taught us so well. Lauryn Hill seems to prove my suspicions about crazy ladies, because the second she takes the stage, you feel you are in the presence of an absolute genius. Her stage presence simply overwhelms the audience of assembled thousands to the point of shock, so that the crowd is suddenly quiet, and staring at her with the curiosity babies get when they see something new.
It’s hard to appreciate the extent to which Lauryn Hill seems possessed by some force we don’t quite understand when she is performing. So much of what she does is improvised and off the cuff that she seems to have access to some world of pure rhythm that is invisible to rest of us, but plain to her. Even with her voice a little hoarse and shying away from the high notes, there is no question that Ms. Hill has achieved a mastery over music that few ever will. You feel, listening to her, impossibly drawn to the stage, as if her voice were a magnet capable of holding your mind captive and erasing all your other thoughts, except, “Hands up in the air” and “Move your body to the beat.” All around me, women and men have their eyes closed and are swaying as if possessed. A euphoric grin comes over my face, and I can’t help pump my fist in the air as she shouts, ‘This one’s for the ladies. Where my ladies at?” A cheer flows through the crowd.
Ms. Hill performs classics from the Fugees, hitting the rap bits hard and wailing on the choruses. When she claims that she is “defecating on the microphone” there is nothing contrived about the expression. She could drop any kind of shit and we’d eat it up. She’s just that dominant, and just that good. When she announces, during the final song, “We gonna do this again!” several times, the crowd cheers.
I think a Lauryn Hill comeback is just what we’ve been waiting for, without even realizing it, for the past ten years. The signature way she yelps at the end of each long note reminds me of the inexplicable style of some kind of visual artist — Picasso maybe. There’s something very visual, and very concrete, about her effect on people, and also something very abstract, something that sinks deep into you like the way you know you could never guess what the artist was thinking just by looking at the painting in front of you. Impenetrable, crazy Ms. Lauryn Hill, who wears the “Ms.” on her name like an epithet meaning something like “knight” or “lord.” It’s a phrase that means something about having discovered herself, or maybe it means something she’s earned for herself in the process of spending ten years in the dark place we might call Crazyland. “I’m a woman and I’ve survived something you don’t even understand.”
flavorwire.com/172776/ticket-to-the-festival-coachella-from-a-performers-perspective/4#post_body
My show is finished, all the equipment is loaded back into the van, I have signed records at a special tent, and now I have that impossible commodity known among touring musicians as “free time.” I am exhausted, the adrenaline rush of the morning fading by the minute, but I haul ass over to the main stage to witness the comeback of the queen of New Jersey, Ms. Lauryn Hill. Now that there are so few women in rap, Nicki Minaj’s album having missed its opportunity to transcend pop and pink and stereotypes about what sells, and Missy Elliott gone missing for years, and Lil Kim without an album or even a single (except that recent, Nicki-bashing stuff), it’s up to Lauryn to bring back the power of hip hop feminism. It’s a difficult task for any performer, let alone one who’s shied away for the spotlight and has been known as bat-shit crazy by everyone, even her biggest fans, for the past decade.
I, however, have the sneaking suspicion that what we call crazy in a woman is usually what we’d call genius in a man. When men rampage wildly against the conventions of our society, or rant at length about the errors of our culture, industry, and religion, we call them interesting or arresting cultural characters, or in, Charlie Sheen’s case, we give them a national comedy tour. When a woman does the same thing, we call her a diva, or sometimes just weird and annoying. See: the backlash against M.I.A.
Actually, the line between crazy and genius for women has always been quite fine, as Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar has taught us so well. Lauryn Hill seems to prove my suspicions about crazy ladies, because the second she takes the stage, you feel you are in the presence of an absolute genius. Her stage presence simply overwhelms the audience of assembled thousands to the point of shock, so that the crowd is suddenly quiet, and staring at her with the curiosity babies get when they see something new.
It’s hard to appreciate the extent to which Lauryn Hill seems possessed by some force we don’t quite understand when she is performing. So much of what she does is improvised and off the cuff that she seems to have access to some world of pure rhythm that is invisible to rest of us, but plain to her. Even with her voice a little hoarse and shying away from the high notes, there is no question that Ms. Hill has achieved a mastery over music that few ever will. You feel, listening to her, impossibly drawn to the stage, as if her voice were a magnet capable of holding your mind captive and erasing all your other thoughts, except, “Hands up in the air” and “Move your body to the beat.” All around me, women and men have their eyes closed and are swaying as if possessed. A euphoric grin comes over my face, and I can’t help pump my fist in the air as she shouts, ‘This one’s for the ladies. Where my ladies at?” A cheer flows through the crowd.
Ms. Hill performs classics from the Fugees, hitting the rap bits hard and wailing on the choruses. When she claims that she is “defecating on the microphone” there is nothing contrived about the expression. She could drop any kind of shit and we’d eat it up. She’s just that dominant, and just that good. When she announces, during the final song, “We gonna do this again!” several times, the crowd cheers.
I think a Lauryn Hill comeback is just what we’ve been waiting for, without even realizing it, for the past ten years. The signature way she yelps at the end of each long note reminds me of the inexplicable style of some kind of visual artist — Picasso maybe. There’s something very visual, and very concrete, about her effect on people, and also something very abstract, something that sinks deep into you like the way you know you could never guess what the artist was thinking just by looking at the painting in front of you. Impenetrable, crazy Ms. Lauryn Hill, who wears the “Ms.” on her name like an epithet meaning something like “knight” or “lord.” It’s a phrase that means something about having discovered herself, or maybe it means something she’s earned for herself in the process of spending ten years in the dark place we might call Crazyland. “I’m a woman and I’ve survived something you don’t even understand.”
flavorwire.com/172776/ticket-to-the-festival-coachella-from-a-performers-perspective/4#post_body