100th Post...Ode to L Boogie - The Original
My best good friend, who stays hooking me up *peep my LenDale Banner* sent me these pics and scans of Lauryn Hill's aka L-Boogie's Essence article this weekend.Lauryn Hill, besides being my real name's sake, has been my inspiration since I really began to give a damn about music. Kweli beat me to the punch with "Ms. Hill" but don't sleep - that's part of what this site is about...
My nickname was L-Boogie coming up because vocally, I had *and still have sometimes* an uncanny resemblence to that of Ms. Hill. Over the years, that nickname was amended, transformed, refined..to L Boog, Boogie, Boog..or LB, hence Elle B.
My vocal coach, Carmen Bradford, from freshman year of college sweetly told me, "Baby, [the world] already has a Lauryn Hill, they don't need another one. We need to work on cultivating your own voice - your true voice, so that world can have an [Elle B.]" (not sharing my full real name quite yet).
At the time, hearing Carmen's comments stung a little - because after all singing like Lauryn is what got me into the USC Thorton school of music and landed Carmen as my vocal coach. I saw her one day in the Music Student Service office. After all of the formalities of hello and how are you doing, Carmen asked me who I was assigned to study with. After I told her the name of the my coach, she rolled her eyes and said, go to the assigment office and tell them that I am going to be your coach. Most music students only get Carmen a couple of years into school - I got her my first year.
Anyways, hearning her say that was a defining moment, like the first time I heard Lauryn sing or Janet Jackson perform *both of these women have the same affect on me when I see them do their thing* - Lauryn Hill continues to be a great inspiration to me, but I don't aspire to be just like her anymore, instead she's a role model of sorts.
Peep the spread: Peep em' out:
*I'm Outtro*
posted by Elle B. at 9:36 AM
6 Comments:
good article...lauryn's still lookin good...
--jamz
I saw that she was on the cover but never looked through it. Thanks for the preview. Essence sure can doll up a black woman!
I miss Lauryn, not a big fan of Ms. Hill lately.
Its insane to me (maybe a bad choice of words) how someone so talented can go from having the defining album of my generation to pretty much self-enduced obscurity in a matter of seven years.
I don't know if "Khulami Phase" is ever going to drop but I do know i'll always love 1998 lauryn more then 2005's ms. hill.
Or maybe you'll just come along and make the NEXT defining album of our generation and make me forgot about LBoogie.
I'm still expecting major things from Ms. Hill. Though she continues to push the envelope (sometimes to the most extreme), that's what being an artist is all about. Those are great photos, BTW. Can't wait to get the mag.
Gee, I hope Lauryn had therapy or some type of spiritual support during her long hiatus. It was obvious to me that she had sometype of breakdown. I am going to be really dissappointed if she is talking crazy in this article.
She looks amazing in the pics, but in parts of the interview she just comes across as a narcissist who won't own up to her own problems.
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