On the 8th of February, 1999, Lauryn Hill appeared on the cover of Time Magazine.
Of the 525 issues the magazine printed in the 1990s, only 17 black individuals appeared on the cover. Five were entertainers. Lauryn Hill was the only musician. And she was just 23 years of age.
It marked a pinnacle in a tremendous, yet tumultuous career, that would see the singer inspire a whole new generation of artists, even as she slipped out of the public spotlight.
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Hill was born on May 26, 1975, to a family in East Orange, New Jersey. Her mother worked as an English teacher, while her father was a computer and management consultant. Both were lovers of music. “There were so many records, so much music constantly being played. My mother played piano, my father sang, and we were always surrounded in music,” Hill recalled in her interview for the Academy of Achievement. The songs of Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, and Gladys Knight, among so many others, were beginning to shape Hill’s passion for the art.
Her first major public performance came when Hill was just 13, and appeared on It’s Showtime at the Apollo as part of their amateur night. Singing Smokey Robinson’s Who’s Lovin’ You?, Hill was booed after completing her first verse. Instead of giving up, she took the microphone from its stand, and strutted confidently around the stage, completing the song.
From a young age, she was an achiever, and not just on the stage. She took advanced classes in schools, receiving mostly A grades, was a member of the track team, a cheerleader, and talk lessons in violin, dance, and singing. Hill was driven to be the best at whatever she put her mind to, and her classmates looked upon her as a leader.
While still a freshman, Hill was approached by Prakazrel ‘Pras’ Michel, and he suggested the pair form a band. They created Tranzlator Crew, and had a second woman vocalist join. She was soon replaced by Pras’s cousin, Wyclef Jean. Performing local shows – “”I remember doing my homework in the bathroom stalls of hip-hop clubs” – Hill began to develop her rapping skills.
It was acting that she found her first success. Hill appeared, alongside Jean, in a 1991 production of Club XII, a hip-hop interpretation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Noting her potential, an agent recruited Hill, and landed her a role on soap opera As the World Turns. She went on to appear in Whoppi Goldberg’s Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit – a performance which film critic Roger Ebert loved, but deemed a waste of her incredible talent – and Steven Soderbergh’s King of the Hill.
That same year, she graduated from high school, and her renamed band, The Fugees, began work on their debut album, Blunted on Reality. It was during this time that Hill and Jean entered a romantic relationship.
Blunted on Reality was released in 1994, but was received poorly, due to their record label, Columbia/Ruffhouse Records, forcing them to emulate a gangsta rap style. Regardless of its limited sales, the record saw Hill emerge as the figurehead of the band. Fans and industry representatives alike urged her to pursue a solo career, but she was committed to The Fugees.
The band released their second album, The Score, in 1996. It reached #1 on the US Billboard 200, and would remain in the top ten on the charts for most of the year. The Score went on to sell six million copies nationally, and 17 million in international territories. Hill’s African-American and Caribbean influences shined in the form of catchy beats, great flow, and socially conscious lyrics. She was named “the most powerful new voice in rap” by Newsweek shortly before The Fugees won the Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.
Behind the scenes, Hill was still living with her parents, and studying history at Columbia University. That all changed when she found success.
Dropping out of college, Hill founded the Refugee Project, an organisation designed to help adjust the attitudes of at-risk urban children in order to help them find success in their later lives. She also raised money for the suffering Haitian community, and supported well-building projects in Kenya and Uganda.
The following year, The Fugees disbanded, as the relationship between Hill and Jean tore apart. Hill went on to make small appearances in two films, and start a family with her boyfriend, Rohan Marley. The decision bought criticism, as many believed Hill’s religious beliefs contrasted with the fact that she had become an unwed mother.
The birth of her son Zion proved itself to be the inspiration Hill needed to continue her music career. In late 1997, she commenced work on her solo record, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. It was a powerful, personal album, the title inspired by the book The Mis-Education of the Negro. Its raw sound was enhanced by its themes; as Hill confronted issues such as the troubles that had lead to The Fugees breaking up.
Though she worked with a production team, her label convinced her to take sole credit for most of the album’s content. She agreed, later implying her reasoning was rooted in feminism: “Men like it when you sing to them…but step out and try and control things, and there are doubts. This is a very sexist industry. They’ll never throw the ‘genius’ title to a sister”.
Released on the 25th of August, 1998, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill became the most critically acclaimed album of the year. It’s honest portrayal of womanhood, mixed with its progressive blending of genres – which would go on to be referred to as the feminist sound of ‘neo soul’ – saw the record top the Billboard 200 for four weeks, and the R&B album charts for six. It sold eight million copies in the US, and 12 million worldwide. Hill would make an incredible $25 million from sales and touring over the next year alone.
In 1999, Hill became the first woman to be nominated in ten categories in a single year. She then broke another award on the night when she became the first woman to win five times. She won Album of the Year, Best R&B Album, Best R&B Song, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, and Best New Artist.
“This is crazy. This is hip-hop!” she declared during her acceptance speech, ushering in mainstream interest in the genre as a result.
The rest of the year was filled with more awards and more firsts, including become the youngest ever woman in Ebony‘s 100+ Most Influential Black Americans list.
But not everything was going so well.
In November 1998, New Ark, the group of musicians who had worked with Hill on Miseducation, had filed a lawsuit in response to the record’s failure to credit their work. Depositions took place in late 2000, and Hill would eventually settle out of court for $5 million.
Meanwhile, Hill had returned to the world of film, but was forced to drop out of projects due to her third pregnancy. She also turned down roles in major productions including Charlie’s Angels and The Matrix Reloaded.
The pressures of fame were slowly overwhelming Hill. Her life consisted mainly of touring, filming, and producing new music, and the little time she had for normal activities such as shopping was often spent avoiding paparazzi. She fired her managers, disappeared from the public eye, and began taking Bible study classes five days a week under a ‘Brother Anthony’.
“I had a tape of (his teachings). That shit is ill. Fucked me up. I can’t really explain it. It was some weird shit, man. It was some real cult shit,” Pras would tell Rolling Stone in 2003.
In 2001, she appeared on MTV Unplugged to perform her new material for an intimate crowd. The resulting recording was released as MTV Unplugged No. 2.0, and was met with mixed reviews. It would end up selling less than 500,000 copies, and saw one reviewer write “In retrospect, Unplugged could hardly have been a worse word in the album title. After the eccentric nature of Hill’s performance on album, Unplugged was too easy a target for jokes. ‘Unhinged’ might have been the only title more unfortunate”.
She shut down the Refugee Project in 2002 and it seemed like the Hill the world had fallen in love with had gone forever.
In a sense, this was true.
“People need to understand that the Lauryn Hill they were exposed to in the beginning was all that was allowed in that arena at the time… I had to step away for the sake of the machine. I was being way too compromised. I felt uncomfortable having to smile in someone’s face when I really didn’t like them or know them well enough to like,” she explained to Essence in a 2006 interview.
The new Hill reared her head in December 2003. At a performance in the Vatican City, she condemned the church for covering up its sordid history of sexual abuse and other offences.
She began sporadically touring and working on new songs the following year. Her work with John Legend on a remix of his track So High, was nominated for a Grammy. In 2004, The Fugees reunited on Dave Chappelle’s Block Party to perform a concert that was met with universal praise. They released a new song and toured in 2005, but tensions between Hill and the other members caused the band to split before recording a new album.
Her erratic behaviour became the focus of media attention. Hill would often show up late for performances, and cancelling entire tours without warning.
In 2013, she was sent to jail for tax evasion.
But from all accounts, Hill’s creative fire continues to burn. “She writes music in the bathroom, on toilet paper, on the wall. She writes it in the mirror if the mirror smokes up. She writes constantly. This woman does not sleep,” Marley explained, though the two have now separated.
Whatever the case may be, and whatever Lauryn Hill releases in the future, it is important not to forget her incredible influence on music. Though she may no longer be in the public spotlight, her work has inspired a whole new generation of artists who are better for the talent she has unleashed upon listeners.