Lauryn Hill To Headline Stockholm Jazz Festival, Plots European Tour

Reclusive R&B-hip-hop star Lauryn Hill will reportedly be making a comeback this summer. The former Fugee will headline the Stockholm Jazz Festival, taking place July 15-19th in the Swedish capital. Hill previously booked a date at Switzerland's Montreux Jazz Festival for July 11th, and according to the AP, an organizer for the Stockholm fest says Hill will in fact perform 10 shows in Europe this summer. Hill also headlined the Stockholm Jazz Festival in 2005.

Hill appearances in recent years have been few and far between. We last saw her in October 2008, when she was hanging out with Martha Stewart at a New Jersey book signing. Before that, we caught Hill two-hour-plus performance filled with Miseducation of Lauryn Hill tracks, Bob Marley songs and the Fugees' greatest hits when she played a free show in Brooklyn's Crown Heights area in August 2007. That same summer also produced the first new Lauryn Hill song in a while, as the mother of five contributed the track "Lose Myself" to the soundtrack for the surfing penguins animated flick Surf's Up.

Hill has reportedly been working on new music since 2004, but has pretty much only released songs for soundtracks. (Hill also recorded "The Passion" for the Passion of the Christ: Songs compilation in 2004.) Not counting 2002's MTV Unplugged 2.0, Hill's lone proper solo album is 1998's five-Grammy-winning The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. In August 2008, to mark the 10th anniversary of Hill's landmark album, Rolling Stone spoke to many of those involved with the making the LP for an exclusive oral history. As for those other Hill European concerts, pretty much every Website dedicated to Hill — from her official site to her Sony site to her MySpace page — have lay dormant for awhile, but we'll post the remaining Hill tour dates as soon as we hear them.

Related Stories:

• Lauryn Hill to Return to the Stage at Montreux Jazz Festival
• Inside "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill"
• Lauryn Hill Shocks Fans With Two-Hour-Plus Career-Spanning Brooklyn Concert

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Song Stories

“Youth Knows No Pain”

Lykke Li | 2011

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”

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