Lauryn Hill's performance at London's Brixton Academy on Saturday night was so controversial and upsetting that it was trending on Twitter for a short time.
After keeping the crowd waiting until 10 p.m., Hill finally emerged, and the results were underwhelming.
The Guardian review called the show an "intriguing, but often challenging" event that saw Hill "abandon the subtleties and nuances of her neo-soul in favour of old-school hardcore hip-hop. Gesticulating to the soundman to turn everything up to 11, she spits the reflective poetry of Final Hours as a rapid-fire rap. To Zion, her gentle paean to her eldest son, is rendered as a blare of freeform jazz."
Meanwhile, the Telegraph was less forgiving.
"In the 1990s, as a member of The Fugees and then a solo artist, Hill was behind two of the decade's biggest hip-hop/R&B albums, The Score and The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill," the review read. "But what she gave us - sadly - was a 78-minute lesson in how to murder your own best songs. She didn't even kill them softly. Almost every element of hip-hop was wiped from the repertoire in favour of a sort of unrelenting soupy soul-jazz."
Then, there were the fans, who expressed extreme displeasure on Twitter. Here are some of the cleaner reviews:
Still can't get over the LaurynHill concert last night I dint even know what songs were which absolutely shocking performance such a let dwn
— Bobby♥Bobs (@ZestyBerry_xo) September 21, 2014
Saw Lauryn Hill in concert last night. She has an incredible voice and talent unfortunately masked by bad sound and an incongruent band :( — nitin sawhney (@thenitinsawhney) September 21, 2014
Lauryn hill is the most disappointing concert I have ever been to. That's heartbreaking.
— Yuichi (@YuichiMiyama) September 21, 2014
The sound at the #laurynhill concert is TERRIBLE!!!! — . 808INK . (@808Charmer) September 20, 2014
Disappointed #laurynhill. Waited months and this concert is poor. We have 30 mins until curfew. No more awful remixes.
— Ben Wilson (@Benjw87) September 20, 2014
I've never tweeted this much from a concert. This is how Upsettingly bad it is #LaurynHill — Amy (@amye1984) September 20, 2014
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