MTV Unplugged No. 2.0: Lauryn Hill DVD: Review By bcloutier

Like me I'm sure you have wondered to yourself sometime tin the last four years exactly where Lauryn Hill went. Her last album, The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill (1998) was a huge critical and popular success. Every, it seems, has a copy in their music collection. If you don't have it, I highly recommend it. It turns out that for the last for or so year Mrs. Hill, who is allegedly married to one Rohan Marley (son of Bob Marley), has been focused on her family life and her three children. Imagine my surprise today when I went to pick up the mail and there was a brand new sparkling DVD waiting for me entitled Lauryn Hill - MTV Unplugged No. 2.0.

Filmed earlier this year, the acoustic performance, on MTV's resurgent acoustic program Unplugged, aired for several weeks. Unfortunately I missed it during it run. I am very glad that I happened upon this DVD, now I know what I was missing. The concert on this DVD is not flashy. Rather the artist, and she most definitely deserves that title, keeps things very simple and straight forward. She manages though to imbue that simplicity with a great awe inspiring power. Lauryn Hill, an acoustic guitar, and a stool, nothing more. The songs she sings are heartfelt and full of poetic emotion. With her raspy voice she pours herself out to the audience in her performance until she can give no more. Near the end of one song,"I Gotta Find A Peace of Mind" we find her crying and making her message just that much more poignant. Even the audience is left in tears. This is the most meaningful and moving performance I'v seen on MTV since Eric Clapton came out mere months after his son died and sang Tears in Heaven. If you are a fan of Lauryn Hill, or simply music and poetry in general then you must have this DVD

Technically the disc is sound. The footage has been transferred onto the DVD in Full screen format. Now I'm not generally a fan of this format but MTV shot the concert that way and in this case it works. The picture is crisp clean , and clear. The sound comes to you in Dolby surround and on a good system the quality is flawless! Technically you could not ask for much more.

As far as extras go, well honestly there aren't any. And sure it would be nice to have some interview footage and various other extras, I get the feeling though that somehow take away from the performance and the power of the messages in her songs. And the performance that we are given is star enough to fill up this disc.

I honestly don't own many concert DVD's. Up until this point I had not really seen a performance worthy of A DVD treatment. Sure, I own a Special edition copy of the excellent The Last Waltz but that is a concert Film that chronicles the last show of one of the greatest bands of the 60s and 70s. Lauryn Hill: MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 is just a performance. Just one artist on a stage alone with her guitar moving an entire audience to tears with her words. Beg, borrow, steal, do whatever you must but find a copy and watch it. I guarantee you will not be disappointed