Lauryn Hill update

Juli thought this might answer some of my questions. To me, though, it seemed a bit of a softball interview, didn’t really go into the theory that the reason she’s stopped recording is that she didn’t really write most of the material herself.

3 thoughts on “Lauryn Hill update

  1. Interesting. I went back and read your first post, asking what happened to Lauryn Hill after Miseducation, which I must have missed.

    What follows is just my opinion; to each his own when it comes to music.

    I was pretty taken with Miseducation when it came out, but have found that it has not held up well over time. When I listen to it now, quite frankly I wonder what I heard in it at all when it came out. Partly, I think that's because the style of R&B/Soul vocalist that Hill clearly wants to be isn't really my cup of tea. I much, much preferred her work with The Fugees. Same goes for the unplugged album she did; I don't care for that at all. I would really have preferred that she stick to a more hip-hop type of sensibility, but I think she clearly didn't want to do that type of music. I find her sensibilities as a pure singer/vocalist to be pretty sub-par, though her voice is wonderful, of course.

  2. Okay…Where do I start? The issue with the Miseducation album is the record company forced her to do what they did with Prince. They forced her to say everything was written by her. The men did the production. The lyrics and i'm sure almost all of the melodies were hers. When the men sued the record company and her, the record company dissed her and didn't have her back. Thus started her hatred of the industry. They used her up and then took advantage of her. Those guys even claimed to write stuff that witnesses said they didn't write. She settled to get the whole thing over with and move on. Add on top of that this Deity-complex that everyone seems to have when it comes to her. She can never do anything to please people without them completely bringing her down. People would rather believe the worst things in the world before they actually look deeper and find the truth. If she's going to called "crazy" then great let her play the part. Donned in period costumes which still doesn't show skin unlike another performer who wears crazy costume and practically gets naked but they call her a genius. Yeah, Lady Gaga. I'm looking at you.

  3. One of the good things about how hip-hop is packaged ("Miseducation" aside) is that it emphasizes the collaborative element of music-making instead of the "lone genius" model.

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