Hill thrills hip-hop crowd

An old Cadillac and truck set the stage for Outkast to enter the Fox Theatre on February 18th. With the R&B group 112 in the audience, Outkast began with their anthem, "Hootie Hoo." Big Boi was dressed in fatigues and an Outkast red, and Andre was dressed in a green sweats and a gray and white fur Mexican sweater and matching sombrero. After a few selections from its three albums, the group engaged the audience in a call and response segment entitled "Bounce Session." The hyped crowd was then led into a mediocre remix of, "Players Ball." Ending with "Rosa Parks," the first release off of its latest album "Aquemini," the crowd was definitely satisfied with the final song.

As the lights dimmed following the twenty minute set change from Outkast, the crowd became vocal while awaiting Lauryn Hill's appearance. Shortly after the auditorium went dark, Bob Marley's "The Redemption Song," began to play. After a short paus

MARGARET MYERS/Daily Lauryn Hill is supersexy fine.

e, the audience became quiet as they looked at a set that resembled blue and purple stain-glassed windows of a church while hearing Lauryn Hill's voice singing the gospel song, "His Eye Is On the Sparrow."

After the beautiful rendition of the well-known gospel song that introduced Lauryn Hill in the movie "Sister Act," the band entered the stage. Aside from music instruments and speakers, the stage included a set of lockers, correlating to the high-school interludes from "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill." The all black and predominately male band was composed of two keyboardists, three guitarists, two percussionists, a saxophonist, trumpeter, trombonist and three female background singers. Lauryn Hill, in a denim outfit with a magenta shirt and matching head wrap, presented herself shortly after the band's appearance . The opening song was a remix of Ex-Factor, which led into the original version with a freestyle segment added to the end.

After a performance of "Superstar," Lauryn performed three Fugees songs. The first was "Fugee-la," followed by, "If I Ruled the World," and "Ready Or Not." With the crowd engaged, she returned to "Miseducation." After a couple of songs she took an interlude with a reggae segment, then left the stage. The disc jockey, DJ Leon, kept the crowd entertained by mixing recent hip-hop songs, while displaying his ability of scratching with his head covered by his shirt. Switching to the drummer, the dreadlock-wearing percussionist showed off his incredible talent on his drum set, then moved on to two bucket pails, which amazed the crowd. After the drummer settled, the band introduced "The Sweetest Thing." Lauryn re-entered in blue jeans, a brown head wrap and a blue and brown bomber jacket with "HILL" embroidered on the back. The crowd did not respond well to "When It Hurts So Bad," but Hill quickly regained the its favor during a competition between the band and the DJ. Dualing with songs by the Jackson 5, Notorious B.I.G., Busta Rhymes, Outkast and Jay-Z, the crowd became loud and actively involved.

After the competition, Lauryn introduced the song, "Zion," by discussing the inspiration of the song, her children. After another reggae interlude, the crowd became extremely hyped when she started singing the first single released from "Miseducation," "Doo Wop (That Thing)." Hill really played to the crowd during the song and finally took off her head wrap during the verse, " ... hair weaves like Europeans ...," displaying her natural collection of long, thick dreadlocks. She said goodnight to the crowd after the song and the band left the stage. After five minutes of chanting from the crowd, she and the band re-entered for an encore of "Killing Me Softly."

While Outkast's performance was entertaining but not mind boggling, Lauryn Hill presented the audience with everything it could have expected, and more for the first performance of her new national tour.

02-22-99