Many people have not been enjoying Lauryn Hill’s recent concerts, in which the singer has been showing up more than an hour late and performing “unrecognizable†versions of her hits. Talib Kweli hears those people’s criticism, and tells them, respectfully, to shut it. “When you pay for a Lauryn Hill concert you are not paying for her to do what you want, you are paying for her to do what she wants,†he writes on Medium. “She is not an iPod nor is she a trained monkey.â€
Kweli reserves his harshest criticism for Stefan Schumacher, the author of the ill-thought-out Medium post “It’s Finally Time to Stop Caring About Lauryn Hill,â€Â though he’s got words for anyone who would complain about Hill’s post-1998 career: “Lauryn Hill gave us two Fugees albums, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and MTV Unplugged 2.0. How arrogant would I be to say she owed me anything? What kind of self absorbed, entitled nonsense is that?â€