On Monday, March 10, a slew of celebrities came to Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church to attend the memorial service for the late R&B singer-songwriter, Roberta Flack. Among those expected to pay their respects were Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, and Dionne Warwick.

However, no one was prepared for the legendary Lauryn Hill to show up to the service, let alone perform.

"We weren't formally asked to do this," the enigmatic performer admitted to the shocked and delighted congregants. "So we kind of bum-rushed the service."

After delivering a touching speech about Flack's importance and legacy, Hill launched into a performance one of Flack's many indelible songs. The obvious choice would have been "Killing Me Softly with his Song". In 1996, Lauryn Hill's group The Fugees brought the mystifying ballad – previously made famous by Flack in 1972 – to a new generation with their triple-platinum neo-soul rendition. Instead, she sang a stirring version of "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", which Flack famously recorded in 1969.

In her emotional eulogy, Lauryn Hill said about the late icon:

For me, the artistry of Ms. Roberta Flack was beyond trailblazing. She – an artist like Nina Simone – carved out for me a pathway of soulful, black, intellectual, sublime beauty that not only spoke to black resistance directly in lyric and statement, but was black resistance... Meaning, she didn't just write about the beauty- she was the beauty. she didn't just write about resistance - her existence was a form of resistance."

Later in the ceremony, Stevie Wonder took the stage to perform his song “If It’s Magic”, as well as “I Can See The Sun in Late December”, which he wrote for Flack in 1975. This was after Lauryn Hill finally joined him to sing "Killing Me Softly with His Song".

Just the day before, Lauryn Hill was in Miami performing at the Jazz at the Garden festival, where she brought out Doechii to help out with a performance of "Doo Wop (That Thing)".