Lauryn Hill sighting!

Pitchfork: Track Reviews: "Lauryn Hill: 'I Find It Hard to Say'
genre: r&b

Think a pitch-shifted Gladys with a smoking habit: Lauryn Hill's burnt mahogany alto is luminous, like the silky black sun wrapped in the effigy of night. Her tone, while gruff and world-weary, channels all the sanctified soul of a Saturday sinner-cum-Sunday saint; if the faintest trace of pain stains her churchified motherwail, it's inevitably washed over with a swath of pure beauty, and the hope that it doesn't take a lightyear to illuminate dark days.

'I Find It Hard to Say', being the latest from the former Fugee (and not that other song from Unplugged a few years ago), exemplifies this lucid dynamism, showcasing bluesy ruminations atop a jittery backbeat that sounds as if it's suited to the sort of no-count nightspot where hardened workaday men go to get drunk, fight, and find God in fiery cups of hell juice. Yet at a little past the two minute-mark, Ms. Hill's cryptic but quasi-religious lyrics climax into a multi-tracked orgy of angelic ad-libs, providing a contrast to the song's melodramatic backdrop. Call it sorrowful or sacrosanct-- here L-Boogie's old-soul aura serves as a beacon for all miseducated lost ones. [Will Dukes]

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