Just a few years ago, Lauryn Hill seemed to have it all. But if it's true that money can't buy happiness, then it's doubly true for Hill.
Instead of relishing the success of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill — her multimillion-selling, Grammy Award-winning solo debut — Hill, 26, felt trapped by it. She dropped out of sight for nearly two years to study the Bible with a spiritual advisor and re-emerged in late July to tape an emotional episode of MTV's "Unplugged," where she debuted some of her new material.
MTV News' Sway talked to Hill after the taping and got the lowdown on her new outlook, the difficult changes she's made and whether there's a Fugees reunion in her future.
Sway: Your episode of "Unplugged" was one of the most honest performances I've ever seen. I met you years ago in San Francisco ...
Hill: Now you are meeting another Lauryn, so it's good to be reintroduced.
Sway: What are some of the differences between the old Lauryn and the Lauryn sitting in front of me now?
Hill: I think the Lauryn Hill of then was looking to be validated, was hoping to be accepted. She was looking for acknowledgment from everybody except the one who made me. At this point, the things I am led to do are things that I know He wants me to do. ... I have inner peace after having done them. It's a different person. Just like everyone else, I wanted to be loved and be liked. So, a lot of my behavior was patterned to be acceptable to whatever the socially acceptable thing at the moment was.
Sway: Give me an example of that.
Hill: It's everything from the time that you are a child. You grow up [learning] how to repress yourself. From the first time someone says, "Who do you think you are?" Or, "She is conceited." Things like that. We just learn how to repress and repress until we become a totally different person. Now I am just beginning to be more comfortable with my identity.
Sway: At the "Unplugged" taping you said, "You guys never met me before and if you can't accept all of me, do you want me to bring two-thirds of me to the table?" Does that happen a lot with you?
Hill: I think everyone is in the same situation, at different levels and in different places. In relationships, we find it difficult to be blatantly honest, because we are afraid to hurt somebody's feelings. But that doesn't change the truth about things.
Let's say a man [has] a girl, and you rub her shoulder. That's annoying to her, but she wants her man to feel confident, so she doesn't say anything. Ultimately it turns into resentment. Don't let that happen. Be honest, brutally honest. That is what's going to maintain relationships. Every time truth comes we hate it, because it's coming against our ego. Are you going to let the ego come between you and this person you love?
After God caused me to reintroduce myself to my family members there were a lot of rocky moments, but I knew it was all for the best. I knew it was because I had been a repressed person for so long. Eventually, He showed me there are millions of people who are holding their breath waiting for this fantasy to return. ... It took a lot of time for me to work through.
Sway: At what point did you come to this new existence? What transition took place in you?
Hill: I met somebody. That person had an understanding of the Bible like no one else I ever met in my life. I just sat at their feet and ingested pure scripture for about a year. I started to see I was my worst enemy. I was the problem, my own self-image, who I thought I should be, as opposed to who I really was. I just ate it up. I started to see that my concept of spirituality was totally wrong. Real religion is no religion at all. Truth is the true covering, and when I started to see that, two things happened. My creativity came back in an overflowing abundance, and I got into direct confrontation with everybody I love.
Sway: You mentioned this person who helped you. Is it a man? Who is he?
Hill: Yeah, it's a brother. I don't speak about him publicly, because he is a good friend of mine. He's not an ambitious person. He just shares, and people want truth. I believe God will make a way and He is going to identify [the man].
Sway: Does he share his wisdom with the rest of the people in your life, like your husband?
Hill: It's like the pulpit. We think that's the church, but that's the wrong concept. Each one is supposed to pull someone else outta the pit. This brother shared with me, and now I share with my husband and he can share with somebody. That is how it is supposed to work. ... I saw somebody living what he was saying. It wasn't a bunch of jargon. His life was a living testimony of faith and of passion and systematic rebellion. ... Kind of like a herd of animals. That strong mother doesn't tell her cub, "Son, stay weak so the wolves can get you." She says, "Toughen up, this is reality we are living in." I went from an emotional placating environment to "Toughen up, Lauryn, confront those fears."
B>Sway: You made a comment during your performance that in life people want fantasies, but what they need is reality in their lives. In terms of the music business, what were some of your fantasies in the past?
Hill: I think I bought into the concept of needing to be a musician/entrepreneur/businesswoman. The only problem was the more business I became, the more it ate away at my creative side. ... It didn't make any sense. Here I am concerned with things that have nothing to do with the most important part, which is the creativity.
Sway: Things like what?
Hill: Appearances, social gatherings. I had a non-profit organization and I had to shut all that down. You know, smiling with big checks, obligatory things, not things coming from a place of passion. That's slavery. Everything we do should be a result of our gratitude for what God has done for us. It should be passionate. I am happy to sing these songs. There is no obligation here. After you are chasing that money, chasing that fame, you can't help it — it becomes obligation. Before you know it, what started off as your passion is a job. Then you say, "Wait a minute, God, you spared me from a slave job in an office, and now I have a slave job onstage." Now I am not on that clock no more. I threw that clock out.
Sway: Were you unhappy onstage or with yourself?
Hill: I was just unhappy with my life. I had acquired everything I thought I wanted only to find out, this is it. I ran very fast in the wrong direction. The less I have, the freer I am to do whatever I want to do. I am up there onstage alone with that guitar. I don't have to consider no one else and whether they are comfortable. I need very little. It seems like I always have these big entourages and I have to consider this person's needs. I am not saying there is anything wrong with that person having needs, but what does that have to do with me delivering my message to the people?
Sway: So have you cleaned that whole entourage up? There is not going to be a band?
Hill: I don't know if there is not going to be any more band. I know that I need to be surrounded by people as passionate and as dedicated as I am. This music is still not really recorded. Most artists would say that is insane. "What are you doing playing all this music?" But what was freely given to me I freely give. I have always been taken care of. I haven't come this far because of a logical decision. If anything, it has been a bunch of illogical decisions one after another, and it seemed the more logical the decision, the greater the response. So I am saying, "God, let me not agree with these text books. Let me agree with what you put in my heart to do. You work out the particulars."
Sway: Are any of the new songs you performed on "Unplugged" recorded yet?
Hill: Some of them are recorded in very sparse ways. Part of it is I had to work through a lot. I had to work through that voice telling me, "People don't want to hear that. You ain't got no beat. Who do you think you are, playing that guitar?" I had to talk back to that voice and say, "You know what? Just because I have a guitar, it doesn't mean that changes me. I still rhyme, I still sing." The means that God gave me to express myself with right now — it's very freeing. I don't have to check with nobody. I can stop. I can pause. I can mess up. I can start again. I can go to another song. I can do anything.
Sway: How did you learn to play guitar? And why the guitar?
Hill: When I was still with the Fugees I would pick up the guitar, and I used to always say, "Wyclef, just get out there and do that thing with the guitar." When God shows you a thing, we always [try] to encourage others to do what we were meant to do. But over a period of time, He caused me to take it more seriously. He was just telling me, "Look, this is your accompaniment. Don't think it's going to be what you thought it was."
Sway: You were self-taught? You just strummed until you got it?
Hill: I don't know if I taught myself. I just evolved by way of necessity, by way of grace. Just grew, and grew and grew.
Sway: You're so different now, but a lot of people still want to know if there will be another Fugees album.
Hill: I don't have the answer to that one at all. I wouldn't try to put myself in a box or put God in a box. I just know where He has me right now is a brand new and totally refreshing place. I just feel good about being real. I hope that by people seeing the result of freedom that they'll want some, too. It was never about me. It was never about the person.
Sway: You seem at peace — it radiates throughout your entire performance.
Hill: You don't know how much artists go through to make it look so easy. It's all in the practice. There is no practice now. Reality is practice.
Sway: You made a comment about your voice being raspy. That doesn't concern you anymore?
Hill: It used to kill me, but not anymore. It got to the point where I was like, "Oh my God, it's reality." My voice being raspy doesn't change the words. I'm sorry that I can't run up the scale and back, but this ain't about me. It's about people receiving encouragement to jump that battery and start living. None of us know how long we're going to be here.
Sway: You talked about a time in your life when you lost your creative juices. I believe you said it came after you wrote one of your new songs, "Rebel," which is about Amadou Diallo's murder.
Hill: It was initially written about the Diallo [murder], and that's when I realized I was very confused. There was a part when I was singing [the word] "rebel," and this part of me is afraid. This one voice was saying, "You can't say that." I was like, "Wait a minute, it's in me to say that." I think it's because I didn't understand the difference between rebellion against God and rebellion against the system that's not God. I'm a rebel in a sense that nobody's going to force me to do something against my will. What do I owe anybody that I should submit my will to them? I mean, I'm not a fool. God teaches me about reality, so when He tells me to do something, I do something, not because somebody told me to. It's because I'm led to.
Sway: Critics and the media might see a statement like that and say you're crazy and emotionally unstable.
Hill: That's OK. ... I don't know anybody that's not emotionally unstable or schizophrenic. People wake up, they have one mood, they have another mood. The only reason why it's looked at as crazy is because we have these images, these icons before us that are not reality. I'm saying, "Who told you that was the standard?"
Sway: When people view this and hear you speak, they are not going to necessarily follow what you are saying.
Hill: They don't have to, because everybody has a choice. There was one song in which I said, "Choose well." I am not here to shove my light down everybody's throat. The people who want it are the only people I am concerned about. For those who don't want it, I have nothing to defend.
Sway: Have you thought about what your first single might be from the album?
Hill: Right now, my pilot is lit again. My firelight for recording is back. I spent six months in the studio banging my head against the wall. This was something brand new. Even with the last album, I was stretching out the parameters of hip-hop as far as I could. Now something has to give and it's not going to be me. ... We call ourselves creators and we just copy it, really. I can honestly say that this music has no external influence and that's why it was pure. It's from the inside out.
