Photo by Will Deitz
Fifteen years ago, Lauryn Hill became a music industry émigré, following what we've since presumed to be the height of her career. Her solo debut album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill dropped in 1998, and Hill embarked on a worldwide tour the following year—with five Grammy Awards for the album in tow. She appeared to have it all together: always all smiles on stage, her singing voice impeccable.
By the year 2000, she was gone.
The second iteration Lauryn Hill emerged a year later at the 2001 Essence Awards. Something was very different. Hill sat perched on a stool with her shaved head, awkwardly strumming her guitar. She made no eye contact with the crowd, wore no smile, and her voice was losing its steam. Hill seemed despondent as she strained to sing a song called "Adam Lives in Theory" about the present-day destruction from original sin. It was an emotional moment for anyone connected to the 1.0 version of her, a person we seemingly never saw again.
Her MTV Unplugged performance followed, where she alternated between two acoustic guitar chords, her setlist giving way to a cataloguing of hurt and conspiracy theories, punctuated with fits of crying. Uncharitable assumptions about her life and mind ran amok in absence of Hill explaining herself: maybe she was crazy, maybe she was on drugs, maybe her fascination with religion reached cult levels? The theories were all underscored by the notion that she was ill-equipped to handle the mantle of pop-icon set upon her.
And then for some, Hill’s dubious marriage to Rohan Marley became the center of the blame. Marley was perceived to be the Ted Hughes to Hill’s Sylvia Plath—a harbinger of some awful fate—and yet another man who broke her down following a previously destructive relationship with former Fugees bandmate Wyclef Jean. While Marley was dubbed her "husband" the two never legally married, but were together for 12 years before splitting in 2009. They have five children together (the sixth isn’t a Marley), and through the duration of that relationship, Lauryn Hill’s behavior remained consistently strange.
She began going by "Ms. Hill," taking guidance from a rumored cult leader named Brother Anthony, named in a 2003 Rolling Stone article, who was apparently a pivotal figure in Lauryn’s disappearance of 2000. That same year Hill challenged pedophile priests while performing at the Vatican and erected a curious website selling pricey personal relics, including Polaroids of herself, along with books and posters as high as $100.
In 2005 came a Fugees reunion during Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, where Hill seemed in better spirits. That appearance became the catalyst for a tepid new Fugees project, led by the single "Take It Easy". A series of leaked tracks circulated on MySpace—including a cover of Michael Jackson’s "I Wanna Be Where You Are"—but the songs were far from cohesive. The MySpace page was ultimately taken down, and nothing became of that project.
Hill returned to the solo stage, wearing elaborate makeup and oversized outfits, appearing excessively late for lukewarm performances and changing the arrangement of all her classics. Reviews referred to her as a circus clown, and articles like "Whatever Happened To Lauryn Hill?" were penned. If Rohan Marley and/or Brother Anthony caused her initial hiatus, then the media hastened a second retreat. In 2008, a photo surfaced of Lauryn and her children at a Martha Stewart book signing. Perez Hilton referred to her as "The Ghost of Lauryn Hill".
Her 2010 Rock the Bells performance on New York’s Governor’s Island was solid enough that it ushered in the phrase: Lauryn Hill is back. Months later though, she received a string of bad show reviews, one suggesting she was close to writing her own obituary on stage. Then, in 2013, following her release from her three-month bid for tax evasion, she was back. However, after being hours late for her homecoming concerts, fans reacted, and she publicly scolded them.
It’s been a back and forth of raising expectations for Lauryn Hill and then gradually lowering them, only to shoot them up sky high again when the slightest glimpse of hope hits. For the most part, it’s actually just waiting—waiting for what her audiences maintain as the real Lauryn Hill to return, the one with a glowing grin with professional presence. It’s a tall order when the trail of breadcrumbs seems to appear and disappear at will.
Last year, Talib Kweli penned an open letter titled In Defense of Ms. Hill, likening her to Yasiin Bey (b.k.a. Mos Def), with the notion that what we want from artists may not be aligned with what they want for themselves. Comparatively, D’Angelo returned at the end of 2014 with Black Messiah, which was detrimental to the spirit of the Lauryn Hill fan, because D’Angelo fans could brag that their wants were his wants.
Finally, at the top of 2015, something changed for the better when Lauryn Hill began a Small Axe: Acoustic Performance Series, a dynamic mini-tour. She still flipped the arrangement of her classics on stage, but seemed to have a renewed spirit about her, even getting up to dance while she sang. She was still almost two hours late for some performances, but that didn’t matter because she was palpably present for, seemingly, the first time in 15 years. New headlines declared "Lauryn Hill’s Still Got It".
Lauryn Hill was…back. Again. Perhaps. For the nth time. And that sentiment has remained intact through her tour, through her 40th birthday celebration, through her contributions to the recent Nina Revisited... A Tribute to Nina Simone release, and extended to her most recent appearance during the BET Awards weekend. This is the most consistent we’ve seen Lauryn Hill in years, but it could all change tomorrow because that’s happened too.
Whether she stays with us, what we should give up on is the demand that a 40-year-old Lauryn Hill devolve into the 20-year-old Lauryn Hill we first knew and loved. Lauryn Hill has always been here, sometimes surprising us, other times disappointing us—but we must quit mistaking an artist—a human being—for a phoenix.