Lauryn Noel Hill (born May 25, 1975) is an African-American recording artist, musician, producer and actress. Early in her career, she established her reputation in the hip-hop world as the lone female member of Fugees. In 1998 she launched her solo career with the release of the commercially successful and critically acclaimed album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. The recording earned Hill five Grammy Awards.
Following the success of her debut album, Hill largely dropped out of public view, in part due to her displeasure with fame and the music industry. After a four-year hiatus, she released MTV Unplugged No. 2.0, a live recording of "deeply personal songs." The live recording was performed with an acoustic guitar played by Hill. Hill also participated in a short-lived Fugees reunion during the mid-2000s. Hill is the mother of five children with Rohan Marley, the fourth son of reggae musician Bob Marley.
Early life
Lauryn Hill was born in South Orange, New Jersey, the second of two children born to high school English teacher Valerie Hill and computer programmer Mal Hill. As a child, Hill listened to her parents' Motown 1960s soul records. Music was a central part of the Hill home. Mal Hill sang at weddings, Valerie played the piano, and Lauryn's older brother Melaney played the saxophone, guitar, drums, harmonica, violin, and piano. In 1988, Hill appeared as an Amateur Night contestant on It's Showtime at the Apollo. She sang her own version of Smokey Robinson's song "Who's Lovin' You?".
Hill was childhood friends with actor Zach Braff and both graduated from Columbia High School in 1993, where Hill was an active student, cheerleader, and performer. Braff has spoken of Hill attending his Bar Mitzvah in 1988. Hill enrolled at Columbia University in 1993 and attended for about a year before dropping out to pursue her entertainment career.
Hill began her acting career at a young age, appearing on the soap opera As The World Turns as Kira Johnson. In 1993, she co-starred in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit as Rita Louise Watson, in which she performed the songs "His Eye Is on the Sparrow" (a duet with Tanya Blount) and "Joyful, Joyful". It was in this role that she first came to national prominence, with Roger Ebert calling her "the girl with the big joyful voice". Her other acting work includes the play Club XII with MC Lyte, and the motion pictures King of the Hill, Hav Plenty, and Restaurant. After her rise to musical stardom, she reportedly turned down roles in Charlie's Angels, The Bourne Identity, The Mexican, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.
She appeared on the soundtrack to Conspiracy Theory in 1996 with "Can't Take My Eyes Off
The Fugees
Main article: The FugeesThe Refugee Camp ("Fugees") formed after Prakazrel "Pras" Michel approached Hill in high school about joining a music group he was creating. Soon after, she met Michel's cousin and fellow Ha?tian immigrant, Wyclef Jean. At some point, Hill was nicknamed "L Boogie", as she began to convert her poetic writing into rap verses. Hill's singing gained worldwide acclaim with the Fugees' remake of "Killing Me Softly with His Song", accompanied by a sample from Rotary Connection's "Memory Band".
The Fugees' first album, Blunted on Reality, peaked at #49 on the U.S. Hot 100. The album sold over two million copies worldwide. Blunted on Reality was followed by The Score, a multi-platinum, Grammy-winning album that established two of the three Fugees as international rap stars. Singles from The Score include "Ready or Not", "Fu-Gee-La", "No Woman, No Cry", and "Killing Me Softly" (written by Lori Lieberman and made famous by Roberta Flack).
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998)In 1996, Hill began production on an album that would eventually become The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. The title was partially inspired by The Education of Sonny Carson, a film and autobiographical novel about a troubled African American youth. The album featured contributions from D'Angelo, Carlos Santana, Mary J. Blige and a then-unknown John Legend. Songs for the album were largely written in an attic studio in South Orange, New Jersey and recorded at Chung King Studios in Jamaica. Wyclef Jean initially didn't support Hill recording a solo album, but eventually offered his production help; Hill turned him down.Lauryn Hill was once an artist on Ruffhouse Records.
Several songs on the album concerned her frustrations with The Fugees; "I Used to Love Him" dealt with the break-down of the relationship between Hill and Wyclef Jean. "To Zion" spoke about her decision to have her first baby, even though many at the time encouraged her to abort the pregnancy as to not interfere with her blossoming career.
The Miseducation contained several interludes of a teacher speaking to what is implied to be a classroom of children; in fact, the "teacher" was played by Ras Baraka (a poet, educator and politician) speaking to a group of kids in the living room of Hill's New Jersey home. The singer requested that Baraka speak to the children about the concept of love, and he improvised the lecture.
Though The Miseducation was largely a collaborative work between Hill and a group of musicians known as New Ark (Vada Nobles, Rasheem Pugh, Tejumold and Johari Newton), there was "label pressure to do the Prince thing," wherein all tracks would be credited as "written and produced by" the artist with little outside help. While recording the album, when Hill was asked about providing contracts or documentation to the musicians, she replied, "We all love each other. This ain't about documents. This is blessed." Hill, her management, and her record label were sued in 1998 by New Ark, claiming that they either co-wrote or co-produced 13 of 14 tracks on the album. The suit was settled out of court in February 2001 for a reported $5 million.
In 1998, Hill released The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which was both critically and commercially successful. It sold over 423,000 copies in its first week and topped the Billboard 200 albums chart for four weeks and the Billboard R&B Album chart for six weeks; it would go on to sell more than 18 million copies over the next decade. The first single off the album was "Lost Ones" (US #27), released in Spring 1998. The second was "Doo Wop (That Thing)", which reached #1 in the Billboard charts. Other singles released in support of the album were "Ex-Factor" (US #21), "Everything Is Everything" (US #35), and "To Zion".
At the 1999 Grammy Awards, Hill was nominated 10 times, becoming the first woman ever to be nominated 10 times in one year: Hill won five Grammys including Album of the Year (beating Madonna's critically acclaimed Ray of Light), Best R&B Album, Best R&B Song, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, and Best New Artist. Hill set a new record in the industry, becoming the first woman to win five Grammys in one night. Between 1998 and 1999, Hill earned $25 million from record sales and touring.
Hill became a national media icon, as magazines ranging from Time to Esquire to Teen People vied to put her on the cover.
In the late 1990s, Hill was noted by some as a humanitarian. In 1996 she received an Essence Award for work which has included the 1996 founding of the Refugee Project, an outreach organization that supports a two-week overnight camp for at-risk youth, and for supporting well-building projects in Kenya and Uganda, as well as for staging a rap concert in Harlem to promote voter registration. In 1999 Hill received three awards at the 30th Annual NAACP Image Awards. In 1999 Ebony named her one of "100+ Most Influential Black Americans". She was named with Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. and others among the "10 For Tomorrow," in the EBONY 2000: Special Millennium Issue.
Hill has been slowly working on a new album and in November 2004 shot a music video. The album had a slated street date of November 2005, and neither it nor the music video have been released. It was also reported that as of 2003, Columbia Records had spent more than $2.5 million funding Hill's new album, mostly spent on installing a recording studio in the singer's Miami apartment and flying different musicians around the country.
Lauryn Hill has been cited as an influence by many, especially those in the neo-soul movement of the 2000s. Musicians who have acknowledged Hill's importance include Prince, John Legend, Alicia Keys, D'Angelo, Mary J. Blige, and Lustevie. In 2005, Talib Kweli released a song about the singer, titled "Ms. Hill", on Right About Now.
Michelle Obama, wife of U.S. President Barack Obama, told the BBC that she frequently listens to Hill's music on her iPod, while 2008 Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain's daughter Meghan has claimed that her father listens to Hill: "I borrowed his car once in D.C., and I was like, looking through CDs, and I was like, 'Oh, Lauryn Hill.'" Actors Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington are also reportedly fans of the singer. D'Angelo, who appeared on "Nothing Even Matters," referred in an interview to at least one church reportedly having used the song in a service.
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