I got the call to shoot this show while sitting bored at work. Needless to say I jumped at the opportunity. Shoutout and huge thanks to Reggie, Rebecca, and the staff at Houston Style Magazine.
I’ve been a huge fan of Lauryn Hill and Nas since before “The Score” with The Fugees and “It Was Written” by Nas. I’ve seen many shows but this one is a hip hop lovers dream duo. Given the recent history of Ms. Lauryn Hill performance attendance, I had my doubts and what-ifs BUT I wasn’t about to miss out on the opportunity to see her live. I really doubted that I would ever get to see her perform live since she disappeared from the music scene for a while so I was very grateful for the experience.
The opening act on the tour was an artist by the name of Jhene Aiko who I’ve heard of from her work with Kendrick Lamar. By the time I got in the venue she was on her second to last song and I do wish I could have heard more of her music. The security guard there was nice enough to allow me to get some shots in of her last song. I look forward to listening to more of her music in the future.
As legendary as Nas is, I’ve never known Nas to perform in Houston so I’m glad I had the chance to watch and photograph his set. “Life is Good” is one of my favorite albums of the year so I figured he would perform most of the songs from the album. He came out to the Life is Good Intro with his full band and even DJ Green Lantern on the turntables. I must admit I didn’t know what DJ Green Lantern looked like but I’m familiar with hearing his name on mixtapes. The crowd was most hype when he performed “Made You Look” and “If I Ruled The World”. It would have been cool if him and Lauryn Hill could have performed it together at the end. He went off into a mini slow jam segment with Bye Baby/Cherry Wine while sipping on a little cherry wine (I’m guessing that’s what was in his cup.) He did a great job of squeezing old songs in with the new ones in 1:15 set even though I wanted him to perform “Black Bond.” All in all, he put on a damn good show.
By this time of the show, I was trying to be a cool photographer and not an overly excited fan. I didn’t know what to expect but I was expecting a great show regardless. As I was entering the photo pit and the music started playing, I had a million thoughts in my head about how Ms. Lauryn Hill was going to come out and how she would be dressed. L-Boogie came out super casual rocking a mini afro, denim jacket, and ripped Gumby shirt. Since photographers are only allowed 3 songs of her performance, I really can’t tell you the song she performed on the intro…Oops! I do remember that “I Get Out” from her MTV Unplugged album was playing before she came on stage.
I failed to mention that since the show was on Halloween, I saw quite a few costumes in the audience although I didn’t record any. I must add that a girl dressed as a rubics cube rocked out to the whole set. I got a couple crowd shots and took in the rest of the show. Lauryn did a mix of Fugees hits, Unplugged, and of course The Miseducation…songs. She performed a lot of the songs with an upbeat tempo that’s not previously recorded that way. I was glad that she performed “Lost Ones” at the original tempo. She literally had the crowd jumping when she segued to The Fugees hits. The guy next time was probably the most hyped guy in the building and screamed “The muthafuckin legend!” every few minutes. To make a long blog story short, I had a great time listening to 2 of the best artists of my to me and so glad I could scratch 2 off my music bucket list in one night.
