Ray of light: Lauryn Hill of the Fugees strikes a pose. Photographed on November 14, 2005, at the Delano Hotel in MIami Beach, Florida.
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In the wee hours of a weekday morning, I sit on a crowded couch in the unreasonably cold waiting room of a midtown Manhattan recording studio with plenty of time to think. It will be hours before the artist formerly known as Lauryn Hill emerges to begin our interview—an inconvenience that her people acknowledge and apologize for repeatedly. For reasons the Fugees camp cryptically describe as “complicated,” assembling Pras Michel, Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill to discuss their upcoming reunion album seems almost impossible. Even though all three are in the studio, tonight I will see only Lauryn.
As I wait, I am desperate for my iPod’s continuous loop of Hill’s 1998 tour de force The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and the Fugees’ classic The Score. I need beats. Beats temper things, remind me that I am about to meet a woman whose creative brilliance not only gave birth to two of the most important albums in hip-hop history but whose very being—her rawness, her honesty, her vulnerability about love, her budding moral and spiritual consciousness—also shocked the world into realizing that hip-hop could still offer access to a higher plane. L-Boogie, as we once affectionately called her, was the hope of hip-hop, pure and simple. Chocolate. Visceral. Sexy. Smart as hell. Successful. Paid. And she bore not one but four of reggae legend Bob Marley’s grandchildren, for God’s sake. Lauryn’s iconic rise and international acclaim might just mean that the world was readying itself for Black Girl Rule.
But controversy surrounded the idolization of Lauryn Hill almost from the start. In 1998 a quartet of music industry pros, Johari Newton, Rasheem Pugh, Vada Nobles and Tejumold Newton, sued Hill for songwriting and production credit on Miseducation, challenging the popular notion that the album was a one-woman show. The lawsuit was later settled out of court. Her romantic union with Bob Marley’s son Rohan, the father of her four children, became tinged with scandal when it was reported that Rohan was still married to a woman he exchanged vows with in the early 1990’s. When Hill took the stage on MTV’s Unplugged four years ago, many fans and close associates believed they were witnessing a genius come undone. The fly-girl persona had been replaced by a defiant woman that audiences responded to by withholding their purchasing power. Despite the fact that Unplugged was billed as a highly anticipated return, the CD sold only a fraction of the sales garnered by Miseducation.
Remaking the bank: From Left, Pras Michel, Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill relax in Miami, cabana-style
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The former media darling, who once graced the covers of magazines as diverse as Essence and Harper’s Bazaar, languished in the court of public opinion. Hill decided to clean house, cutting ties with former colleagues and friends. Invited to the Vatican in 2003, she stunned fans by delivering a scathing indictment of priests who commit child abuse. And last summer in London she kept more than two thousand ticket holders waiting for almost three hours with no more explanation than, “I have a problem with procrastination. I have a great deal of difficulty deciding what to wear. It’s a woman thing.” Professionally speaking, her behavior amounted to self-sabotage. The New York Daily News ran a blind item last November accusing Hill of attaining “new diva heights by imposing an imperious rule on everyone who’s working on her Fugees comeback album,” noting that she makes everyone call her Ms. Hill.
The reasons for her new enigmatic persona differ drastically, depending on the source. Hill, now 30, claims that she’s become hardened because some in her inner circle took advantage of her and used her for personal gain. But according to one friend who declined to be named but who’s worked closely with the singer for nearly a decade, these allegations are just unfounded. “Lauryn has a history of blaming her problems on those she trusts,” he says. “She wants the people in her employ to fear her, because she confuses it with respect.”
Rapper Talib Kweli, a fan and former acquaintance whose ode to Ms. Hill’s newly declared identity aired on New York radio station Hot 97 just days before this interview, has a different take. “When an artist gives a piece of her soul to the public, she doesn’t necessarily get that back,” he reflects. “And when you’re constantly giving huge chunks of yourself as Lauryn was, sometimes you have to do things that seem eccentric or crazy to maintain your own sanity. You may retreat, you may seek spiritual counsel, whatever it takes to get back that piece of your soul you’ve been giving away.”
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