Posted on: Friday, February 9, 2007
The education of Lauryn Hill - what she's been up to
Advertiser Staff
What about Lauryn?
Good question. Eleven years after notching a monster worldwide hit with a cover of Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly" with The Fugees, and nine years after taking home five Grammys for her equally monster, critically beloved solo debut "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill," the artist formerly known as "L Boogie" is one of the music biz's most notorious recluses.
Her last notable moment on disc was 2002's "MTV Unplugged 2.0" — a solo-acoustic live recording that while often fascinating musically, garnered more attention for Hill's frequent on-the-verge-of-breakdown, sometimes indecipherable, nonmusical ramblings.
She has done only a handful of press interviews since the turn of the millennium. (Bob Fest promoters said she would not be doing any press for the festival.)
A brief return to the studio with former Fugees Wyclef Jean and Pras Michel a couple of years back produced a handful of uneven tracks that largely met with indifference. And Hill's long-awaited sophomore follow-up to "Miseducation" remains — depending on what rumors one believes — long-shelved, ever-in-the-making or just plain unstarted.
What Hill — the 31-year-old mother of four children with Rohan Marley, one of Bob's many offspring — does do these days when the mood strikes are occasional live appearances, like at tonight's Bob Fest.
We did some searching to uncover details on some of her live performances and activities of the past year:
In a February 2006 interview with Essence magazine, Hill said of her status following "Miseducation," "People need to understand that the Lauryn Hill they were exposed to in the beginning was all that was allowed in that arena at that time. There was much more strength, spirit and passion, desire, curiosity, ambition and opinion that was not allowed in a small space designed for consumer mass appeal and dictated by very limited standards. ... I had to fight for an identity that doesn't fit in one of their boxes. I'm a whole woman. And when I can't be whole, I have a problem. By the end I was like, 'I've got to get out of here.' "
Also in February 2006, Hill performed a free concert sponsored by Verizon Wireless with The Fugees at the Los Angeles intersection of Hollywood and Vine. Addressing her time away from the music scene on stage, Hill, according to Rolling Stone, said, "I'm a black woman who's super-smart, can't be bought, can't be bribed. ... If that's the definition of crazy, then I'm craaazy."
In July, the San Jose Mercury News reported that a two-hour-long set in a small Santa Cruz nightclub featured Hill debuting an "Afro-pop meets jazz sound" heavy on Jamaican- and African-style rap, backed by a 13-piece experimental jazz band. Her hits were deemed "virtually unrecognizable." She covered Bob Marley's "Zimbabwe," Carole King's "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" and Burt Bacharach's "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?"
In October, Hill did a private concert for select American Express cardholders. The set list was mostly African pop and jazz with little hip-hop.
Last month, British R&B vocalist Joss Stone said in the British weekly New Musical Express that Hill had contributed some rapping to "Music," a Fugees-inspired track off Stone's upcoming third disc, "Introducing Joss Stone."
