What kind of oldies concert draws a huge audience in its 20s? Rock the Bells, the daylong hip-hop festival that came to Governors Island on Saturday. This year’s Rock the Bells borrowed an idea from the indie-rock festival All Tomorrow’s Parties, booking groups to perform watershed albums in their entirety.

Two headliners, Snoop Dogg and Wu-Tang Clan, largely complied with the assignment. Snoop Dogg brought along most of the guests from his 1993 album, “Doggystyle,” made back when he was Snoop Doggy Dogg. The others  A Tribe Called Quest, KRS-One, Rakim and Slick Rick  went “veering off,” as Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest put it, to play additional hits (which no one minded) or to plug more recent projects.

And then there was the wild card: Lauryn Hill, the singer and rapper formerly of the Fugees, appearing half an hour late. She hasn’t released a studio album since “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” in 1998, and she has recorded and toured only sporadically since then while raising five children. “I miss you,” she told the crowd repeatedly. Partway through the set she pulled guests out of the V.I.P. section and onstage: Mary J. Blige, Alicia Keys, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, John Legend. They missed her too.

Ms. Hill’s voice has a raspy edge now; it has left behind the smoothness of Roberta Flack for the bite of Tina Turner. But she has the timing to match, and she threw herself into the performance. Backed by a band that pushed the songs toward rock, Ms. Hill rapped at top speed and belted songs from “Miseducation” and the Fugees’ “Score” with reckless gusto and soul screams.