"President Obama faces a challenge like Lauryn Hill after her album 'Miseducation of Lauryn Hill' won five Grammys." --Pete Wentz

In a recent rant, Fall Out Boy's bassist waxed poetic on the high expectations our new Commander-in-Chief faces.

It was an odd scene one recent evening. The Brazilian Minister of Culture -- a graying but robust man in his 60s -- danced frenetically, goofily with a 20-something longhaired, bearded American hippie. Both flailed their legs and arms, both flashed huge grins and sparkly eyes, exuding pure joy, and then walked away, arms around each other into the night.

Unusual? Maybe. But not entirely, given the setting: On stage at the Hollywood Bowl in front of a delighted crowd of more than 12,000 people, most of them dancing along. This sort of tableau is exactly the kind of thing the people at the Bowl have tried to make routine for a decade now since founding the World Festival, an annual series put on in association with noted non-commercial radio station KCRW-FM in Santa Monica. The dancing fools this night were the evening's headliners: Brazilian great Gilberto Gil -- co-founder with Caetano Veloso and others of the '60s tropicalista movement, jailed and exiled as a dissident and now for the last five years his government's culture czar -- and Devendra Banhart -- the young prince of what has been described variously as Freak Folk and New Weird (or Wyrd) America, though truth be told he reaches well beyond those labels.

'Ex-Factor'
--Lauryn Hill (1998)

The Kiss-Off: "No one's hurt me more than you/And no one ever will"

"Yo, it ain't workin'." Gotta figure that's what someone in the studio said when the Wu-Tang Clan sampled Gladys Knight's version of 'The Way We Were' for their classic 'Can It Be All So Simple.' Ms. Hill then recycled the Wu's recycled version for this, her futile plea for the simple life. "Loving you is like a battle," she tells her man, who best be looking out: She's got skills.

Artist: Alice Smith
Song: 'New Religion'
Album: 'Lovers, Dreamers & Me'
Sounds Like: Jill Scott, Lauryn Hill

Download: 'New Religion' by Alice Smith (MP3)

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Fun Fact: The 'You Know I'm No Good' remix features verses by Ghostface Killah.

Sounds Like: Lauryn Hill fronting the Supremes on a bender.

Download: 'You Know I'm No Good' feat. Ghostface Killah (MP3)

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