“I’m 100 percent sure that’s Lauryn Hill,” I tell my friend Jayline from the Merriweather Post Pavilion parking lot in Columbia, MD this Sunday evening about the voice faintly projecting from the speakers afar.

I got the call from Jay that she was blessed with FREE tickets to the legendary Hip-Hop concert “Rock The Bells Festival” at about 5:30 PM that day. Gates opened at 11 AM. She had contacted me via Twitter at about 3:30 PM to “make sure” I had not gone to the monumental event without her. (This is why I swear by Twitter…) Someone came across her tweets to me, saw how badly she wanted to attend the event, and offered her radio-station won tickets to her– no questions asked.

In the middle of styling my hair, Jay asked me if I wanted to go with her to the show, and I showered and dressed in less than 30 minuets–hair a mess and I could have cared less. We made it from Northeast, DC to Columbia, MD in about 45 minuets, parked and RAN (no exaggeration) to the show where LAURYN HILL was already performing ‘Ex Factor’ at a much faster tempo than the studio recording on her record-breaking Grammy award winning album “The Miseducation…”

We squealed after security checked our bags an scanned our tickets to enter the mind_blowing event.
I couldn’t believe we were there! Shortly after finding a pretty good place to stand, Ms. Hill invited her ‘friend’ to join her. None other than Mr. Nasir Jones better known as Nas hit the stage with Hill to perform “If I Rulled the World” and the crowd went wild! Myself included. Hip-Hop history was taking place before my eyes and I almost cried. All I could repeat was, “I must have done something right this week.”
I just knew I wouldn’t be at the show for several reasons, and here I am… In perfect view of the stage, for absolutely free, enjoying the hard-to-grasp Lauryn Hill. Content, impressed, speechless, and overwhelmed are adjectives that don’t begin to explain my confused emotion. Ecstatic might be the most accurate for now.
Between sets, there were several concession stands to buy food, liquor, and souvenirs. We hit them all. Chicken tenders, wine, and t-shirts helped us commemorate the stupendous occasion.

Next up, Wu-Tang Clan shut the show down, according to popular consensus. Aside from how damn good M-E-T-H-O-D MAN looked, and how inspiring it was to see the group all together again; highlights of the performance included seeing Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s first born son, Young Dirty Bastard, on stage wearing his father’s misguided cornrows rapping his lyrics, and hearing Inspectah Deck tell the crowd he had lost his mother mere hours ago. He, admittedly, respected the power of hip-hip so much that he felt a little comfort by performing for us. That’s love!

After my third (or fourth) glass of wine, I felt great and was ready to crypt-walk to the musical styling of the closing act
S-N-double-O- P (Snoop Dogg.)

Lady Rage opened for him performing “Afro Puffs.” But Snoop did not disappoint. Even though there was almost a riot waiting for him to finish setting up his set,  he performed much of his first album Doggy Style. He looked really good and sounded even better rapping to songs like, “Murder,” “187,” and “What’s My Name (Snoop Doggy Dogg.)”
The crowd, who was enthusiastic and evident Hip-Hop heads, enjoyed every second of the 12-hour show with energy to spare.□

Enjoy the pictures and video and leave me some feedback.

Peace, Love, Create
~BobbyPen

*All photography and video editing is done by Lauren M. Williams. All rights reserved.