Ms Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean – two-third of Fugees – performed all of their landmark album ‘The Score,’ as Hill’s Diaspora Calling! festival made its UK debut on Friday.
Ten years after its inaugural edition in Brooklyn, the event at The National Bowl in Milton Keynes, England, had Dave Chappelle as host and a line up boasting Erykah Badu, YG Marley, Fireboy DML plus others.
Looking out at the crowd prompted Hill to reflect.
“I think to me what I thought about was when we started and this was the mission from the beginning and sometimes, you know, maybe you get off the path a little bit but you got to reclaim that and get back on it,” Hill told The Associated Press, after the show.
Performing songs from ‘The Score’ in its 30th anniversary year “was wonderful,” Hill added.
“We get the time back. We get the time back every time we do that.”
“That album grew me,” Hill’s son YG Marley told the AP. “I make reggae music, I still make my little rap music too. And that’s what made me turn into a rapper.”
Zion Marley, brought onstage by his mother to sing Bob Marley & The Wailers’ “Three Little Birds,” said ‘The Score’ “just keeps me on my toes.”
“I want to always do my best, you know, in the music, because I came from greats and they didn’t take it half. You know they went fully for it and they made sure that they put their love and their every being into their music,” he said.
Describing their mother as “a strict mom,” YG added, “I was at her shows since I was 8 years old, looking at her on stage, admiring what she does I mean so that made me want to do what I’m doing now.”
To festival-goer Chris Grimes, Hill is an icon.
“It rings true because you don’t know when you’re going to see such great artists again, so this is something which we had to go to,” he said.
His sister, Deborah Blythe, celebrated the spirit of Diaspora Calling!
“I think in these times where we do have a divided society, to see so many people here brought together for music is a beautiful thing,” she said.
“I think it’s great to amplify love and unity,” agreed fellow attendee Elle Erinly, “especially with so much negative connotations and negative messaging that’s going on within the continent and across the world. I think it’s fantastic. I’m seeing different patterns, different prints, beautiful people, not just people who are from the African or the Caribbean, people that are in solidarity from other cultures all here to enjoy.”
Credit: TMZ
