Photo credit: Paras Griffin/Getty Images It must be said that Lauryn Hill generated much of the excitement of the night. Sure, most of the crowd probably haven’t seen her live in years (if ever). And yes, she hasn’t released any “new” music in a while. Yet, the much marveled/maligned emcee-by-way-of-songstress capabilities commanded the main stage for the final act of One Musicfest 2015. And for that, many were excited. After the night was over, many weren’t all that satisfied. Was her performance wack? Not quite. Was her performance what people were expecting? Well, that depends on who you are. You see, Lauryn Hill’s performance was a mixture of the past and the present. While she made sure that she rocked her older music, she gave her music grand remixes. And those remixes had many of the concert goers left with emotions more mixed than Future’s cup of Sprite and Actavis. From my account, Lauryn Hill did her thing. But, the unfamiliarity of her music said otherwise to many people. Before anyone else ask “Well, what about the other artists?,” please rest assured that the majority of them did what was expected: they rocked. Photo credit: Sherwin Dyer/ShoShots The Internet had the Hercules Stage (the side stage) rocking like it was nobody’s business. Wale made sure that he featured much of his sure fire music from albums past and present. Janelle Monae and Wondaland kept the crowd wanting more. If you ask many concert goers, Big Krit should have been on the Zeus Stage (the main one) instead of the side stage. So, people actually got their money’s worth concert wise. Yet, no concert performance was to even come close to topping what was the final act of the Hercules Stage: The Roots. Let me tell you: if you didn’t take the time to watch them perform, then you missed a treat. On no account should people have missed such a moving and enthralling performance. Black Thought rocked the mic like he had a point to prove. Horn players were working the angles and jumping around while they played. They even had Jeremy Ellis kill the Maschine like he was a one man soul-remix-orchestra. Photo credit: Paras Griffin/Getty Images The Roots are called legendary because their performances are nothing but. In the end, this One Musicfest was great because of the side stage more than the big one. Of course, there was plenty of great performances on the main stage. Yet, it seemed that a lot of the heart and ingenuity happened at the “smaller venue” of performance. Heart and passion replaced the gloss and big name aura on this night. On this night, the main stage could have taken a note from the stage where the least was expected from. Photo credit: Sherwin Dyer/ShoShots
