Her new songs underline the fact that Hill now lives in the land of do-as-you-please. This isn't lunacy at all, but a philosophy tailor-made for the tantrum-throwing, I-don't-do-stairs world of soul divas and supermodels. Hill no longer does anything she doesn't want to do, she explains, because obligation is 'slavery'. In fact, her attempts to illuminate her new outlook reveal a muddle of Little Book of Calm platitudes ('all of us have a right to be who we are', 'true healing is from the inside out') and what sounds suspiciously like selfishness. One popular theory is that Hill is just barking mad. The precise nature of Hill's conversion has aroused much discussion in America, particularly after she wound up her Refugee Fund, a charity for deprived children, declaring it was 'not coming from a place of passion' and was interfering with her 'creativity'. As you reach for the off button, however, there's a gripping diversion: Hill starts holding a discussion with 'the people in my head'. It features perhaps the least enticing introduction in the history of the live album: 'I used to be a performer,' says Hill, 'but I don't really consider myself a performer any more.' It's a facetious, condescending remark that makes you rethink whether you really consider yourself a listener any more. In the background, you can hear executives from Hill's record company wailing impotently and tearing clumps of their hair out.Īt least MTV Unplugged 2.0 gives Hill's audience fair warning of what they're letting themselves in for. Half an hour is given over to lengthy monologues in which the former Fugee explains her 'miraculous' life change.

Her re-emergence is heralded not with a sassy hit single like Doo Wop (That Thing), but a two-hour-long double-live-CD set, which features Hill alone, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. Now, however, Hill has returned, after undergoing a religious conversion so dramatic that she has completely reconsidered her musical approach. Even as you read this, Miss Dynamite, the UK garage MC behind last year's hit single, Boo!, is being relaunched as a worthy protest rapper in Miseducation mode. Last year, New Jersey trio City High's hit single What Would You Do?, offered a well-crafted facsimile of Hill's sound. In her absence, her album's smart melange of 1970s soul, reggae and socially conscious hip-hop has proved massively influential. Hill, however, was reportedly so unhappy that she withdrew from music for three years. In 1998, her solo debut album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, sold a staggering 13m copies and won five Grammy Awards.

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