Love it or loathe it, sometimes musicians are late taking the stage but Lauryn Hill has turned delays into an art with her Essence Festival appearance.
The 90s icon is known for her tendency to be fashionably late but while at the New Orleans festival, her already late-night set was delayed by two hours.
By her 2.30am start time, most fans had called it a night, meaning the 83,000 capacity Superdome venue was nearly empty when she finished at 3.37am.
Lauryn, 50, put on a show regardless of the waning crowd and belted out hits like Ready or Not and Killing Me Softly to close Essence Festival’s first day.
While she is notorious for her poor time keeping, the blame for this two-hour shift was not laid at her feet.
Instead, the entirety of Friday’s Evening Concert Series seemed to be running late, with GloRilla finishing her set at 10pm — 45 minutes into the next scheduled act.
From the start things reportedly went awry, having been due to kick off at 7.10pm with Psyrin for a 20 minute set ahead of Lucky Dave at 7.30pm.
The lineup included Coco Jones, The Isley Brothers, and Babyface, who all should have finished before 11.15pm for penultimate act Maxwell to start.
However, the Ascension singer, 52, was not on stage until 12.55am – a whopping hour and 40 minutes after he was due to start.
Maxwell’s stage was reportedly cleared around 2am, with Lauryn finally able to perform around half an hour later.
‘Where is Lauryn,’ asked TikTok user morgand.23 who posted a video of the half-empty stadium and revealed how late it was.
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Brooklynsd said: ‘This messes everything up. Fans waiting and even the workers having to wait until the nights festivities are over. Production crew has to wait until the end too.
‘She’s so inconsiderate. I’m a fan of her music that’s why I’d stream it and never go to a show.’
Tommmm added: ‘Saw the Fugees back in the day and tried to see her once and learned my lesson when she cancelled four hours after it was supposed to start.’
‘That’s not ok and people paid to see her,’ shared Prissy as Craig joked: ‘Early for Lauryn Hill.’
Fans commented how ‘she’s been doing this for years now’ and that those waiting had ‘no one to blame but themselves’.
‘This is y’alls fault, yall know Lauryn is known for being late,’ wrote Nico Rhonni as Mr Bing added: ‘She does this at every show’.
A Lauryn fan page defended her and said: ‘Uhuh Essence Fest started late. Nothing was on time. She was not late. Let’s not do this.’
This comes after the Fu-Gee-La hitmaker cancelled the US leg of the Miseducation Anniversary concert series two years ago.
In a statement at the time, she wrote: ‘The trust and faith I have in my intentions and my commitment to my art seem to have been overshadowed by this unfortunate portrayal.’
The Fugees — which consisted of Lauryn, Wyclef Jean, and Pras Michel — clarified this was due to poor ticket sales before Pras took a stance against his bandmates.
The 52-year-old musician launched legal action against Lauryn for fraud and breach of contract as they shortened their 2023 tour.
There have been no updates since the case was launched in December 2024, meanwhile, Pras is awaiting sentencing after being convicted on 10 counts of corruption the year before.
He appealed to President Donald Trump to grant him a pardon over the charges, which involve the $4.5billion (£3.5billion) looting of Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, 1MDB.
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