With the clock striking 10 p.m. in Philadelphia on Saturday night, the end of the second night of the annual Roots Picnic got a huge surprise when evening headliner Lauryn Hill welcomed her old friends and former Fugees bandmates Wyclef Jean and Pras Michél for a brief, but impactful reunion of the hit-making R&B-hip hop trio.
Classily dressed for the surprisingly cool breezes of June with an emerald-green cape and a gem-encrusted vest-shirt-and-tie ensemble, Hill mentioned the 25th anniversary of her 10 million-plus selling “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” (“I love saying those words,” she shouted) before launching into a husky-voiced rendition of “Everything Is Everything” and a jaunty “Superstar.”
Not long after Hill’s recent tour addition of her cover of Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” and a spirited take on her solo classic, “Doo Wop (That Thing),” the stage welcomed several members of the Roots — fellow former Fugees Pras and Wyclef.
Starting with “The Score” and ending with the sing-song-y “Fu-Gee-La,” the six-song set-within-a-set seemed like a fully-rehearsed, crisply executed session as opposed to an impromptu, last-minute thing. Perhaps the intuition of three old souls interacting as one, the frisky Fugees ran through the huff-and-puffing “How Many Mics,” a raga-tinged “Zealots,” and the supple rhythms of “Ready or Not” and “Killing Me Softly with His Song,” before its unified “Fu-Gee-La” finale.
What was most magical about the Fugees reunion, beyond its shock value to an audience already hung on every Hill thrill, was the fact that it happened at all.
Not only did the group abruptly cancel a planned 2021 world tour — ending up playing just one concert — but in April Michel was convicted on international conspiracy charges and seems to be looking at a long stint in prison. Credit the diligence of Questlove and Roots manager Shawn Gee (also the lead of Live Nation Urban) not only for making the reunion happen Fugees reunion happen under wraps.
Writing on his Instagram late into Saturday evening, the birth date of his father, Lee Andrews (of Lee Andrews & The Hearts fame) Questlove stated:
