MTV Unplugged No. 2.0

MTV Unplugged No. 2.0
Live album by Lauryn Hill
Released	May 7, 2002
Recorded	July 21, 2001
Venue	MTV Studios in New York
Genre	Folk • soul • hip-hop
Length	106:36
Label	Columbia
Producer	Lauryn Hill Alex Coletti
Lauryn Hill chronology
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998) MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 (2002)

MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 is a live album by American singer Lauryn Hill. The performance comes from her 2002 MTV Unplugged special recorded on July 21, 2001, at MTV Studios in Times Square, New York City. Hill abandoned the hip hop sounds of her debut album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998) in favor of folk and soul songs. It was recorded while she was pregnant with her third child YG Marley.^[1] The songs were written solely by Hill, who performed them unaccompanied by a live band, while playing an acoustic guitar. It features lyrics about religion, police brutality, mental health and abuse of authority, along with spoken interludes about her personal and artistic struggles.

MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 was initially met with mixed reviews. Most critics found Hill's performances self-indulgent and repetitive, while some appreciated the album as a bold and sincere change in artistic direction. The album has since received retrospective acclaim by critics who have praised the album for its uniqueness and rawness, and a variety of hip hop, R&B and pop artists have cited it as an inspiration.

The album sold approximately 122,000 copies in its first week, debuting at number three on the Billboard 200. It has been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, having shipped one million copies in the United States. The song "Mystery of Iniquity" received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Female Rap Solo Performance, and was famously sampled by Kanye West on his 2004 song "All Falls Down".