Lauryn Hill has responded to those who have complained about her missing recent shows, saying that fans are “lucky” she makes it on stage every night.
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The former Fugees singer, who is currently on tour around North America celebrating the 25th anniversary of her Grammy-winning debut solo album ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’, has had to cancel or postpone multiple shows due to an ongoing vocal injury.
A concert in Philadelphia on October 22 had to be moved, while Hill was forced to cancel an October 30 show in Fort Worth, Texas.
Yesterday (November 4), she played at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena, and took the time to defend herself against those who were complaining about her absences.
Lauryn Hill addresses her “lateness”
—“Yo, y’all lucky I make it on this stage every night!” pic.twitter.com/ieulUzn8Bp
— mya. (@myabriabe) November 5, 2023
“They say, ‘she’s late a lot’,” she said, in a video posted online that you can watch above. “Yo, y’all lucky I make it on this stage every night.”
“I don’t do it because they let me do it, I do it because I stand here in the name of god,” she continued.
“God is the one who allows me to do it, who surrounded me with family and community when there was no support, when the album sold so many records and no-one showed up and said ‘hey, would you like to make another one? So I went around the world and I played the same album over and over and over and over again. Because we’re the survivors. We’re not just the survivors, we’re the thrivers.”
Hill issued a statement after cancelling the Fort Worth show, explaining that “I fought through the last couple shows, pushing my voice, and masking the injury with medication. This isn’t safe or sustainable. I woke up this morning hoping to have enough voice to get through tonight, but I can barely talk let alone sing or rap.”
The shows are being co-headlined by Hill’s group the Fugees, with two dates currently remaining, in Oakland on November 7 and finishing in Seattle on November 9.
Hill recently performed her debut album in full back in June as part of The Roots‘ festival The Roots Picnic. Fugees hosted a surprise reunion as part of Hill ‘s set.
The Roots served as her backing band for the performance, and she was then joined by Fugees bandmates Pras Michel and Wyclef Jean, performing six tracks including ‘Killing Me Softly’, ‘Ready Or Not’ and ‘Zealots’.
The unexpected mini-reunion came after the band cancelled their planned 25th anniversary tour in January 2022, with Michel then convicted for his involvement in a billion-dollar Malaysian money laundering scheme in April.
The group said at the time of the cancellation that the COVID pandemic had “made touring conditions difficult, and we want to make sure we keep our fand and ourselves healthy and safe”, though it was later reported that the dates were thrown into jeopardy by Michel’s legal issues.