Lauryn Hill | Academy of Achievement (2024)

Do you feel pressure from the record company to produce a more commercial product?

Lauryn Hill: I personally don’t feel the pressure. The pressure is out there but I don’t feel it. I really, really don’t. It does exist. I’ve seen people, “Hey, where’s that record company? You can’t leave us hanging like that. We need something else….” or the record company, the window of opportunity is almost closed. But I just don’t think that those rules apply to me. And not because of me, but I just think that it’s something spiritual, or something bigger. I think that if you respond to the needs of the people that’s timeless. There’s not a window of opportunity for people’s needs.

You’ve also talked about needing to live life in order to create.

Lauryn Hill: Yes, that was crucial.My whole life at a certain point was studio, hotel, stage, hotel, stage, studio, stage, hotel, studio, stage. I was expressing everything from my past, everything that I had experienced prior to that studio stage time, and it was like you have to go back to the well, in order to give someone something to drink. I felt like a cistern, dried up and like there was nothing more. And it was so beautiful, because normalcy, I returned to a normal situation with my children running around screaming, and it was wonderful. I walked down the street and I went grocery shopping and I loved it. Every minute of it I love. I find, even though it’s raining, I just go outside. I look outside and I’m just so blessed to see it and to experience it, because for such a long time I was just indoors.

Sometimes, when success is really huge, one can become entrapped by it.

Lauryn Hill: The whole concept of success, to me, is a little bit warped, because what are you being successful at in your house trapped? That’s not successfully living. I don’t buy into that whole concept of success that I have this mountain with this moat around it and then I get into my big car and drive to my destination and never see people. That’s not my concept of success. My concept of successful living is escaping the matrix, as we’ve talked about. It has very little to do with what people think success is. I actually feel successful right now, even though I don’t have an album out, or a video or a song on the radio, because I’m trying to be obedient to His will. I’m trying to be a loving and caring mother, a loving and caring wife-to-be, a loving and caring daughter, a loving and caring friend, a responsible person. And every day is another opportunity for me to be successful at that. The other stuff, I think it will come. I think — I don’t think, I know — there are certain gifts that each of us have. The gifts you don’t have to worry about so much, because God gave them to us. It’s the living, it’s the life, it’s the now. Wisdom without understanding, what is it? You’re so wise, you’re so intelligent, but how do you apply that to your life? Is your life in turmoil?

You grew up in South Orange, didn’t you? Were you born there?

I was born in East Orange. I lived in Newark for a brief time, moved to New York for a short period of time, and then moved to South Orange. South Orange was interesting because it was this very diverse — and I can’t just say South Orange, I have to say the area surrounding South Orange — because Newark is the city and the Oranges are the suburbs. Okay? And I lived in a suburb where it was, I’d say 50 percent, maybe 40 percent black, 60 percent Jewish. And I grew up with this very eclectic, just interesting exposure to all these different cultures. And of course Manhattan is right there, so from the time I was very young, exposed to the Jewish community, the Asian community, the West Indian community, the Cuban community, the Latin, just a myriad of cultures in this one area.

Were you interested in school?

My mother was a teacher. She’s an educator. But even if she wasn’t, I really think I had a love for — I don’t know if it was necessarily for academics, more than it just was for achieving, period. If it was academics, if it was sports, if it was music, if it was dance, whatever it was, I was always driven to do a lot in whatever field or whatever area I was focusing on at the moment. So I did well in school, but learned a lot from that too, learned a lot from the school, the school atmosphere, the school setting. But so much of my experiences came around school, not so much in the classroom, but what took place outside the classroom. A lot of those life lessons were attained outside. Inside as well, but outside also.

It sounds like a very colorful environment.

Lauryn Hill: Oh, it was colorful all right.

Are there experiences you recall that led you into music?

Lauryn Hill: Definitely. My parents had a love for music. There were so many records, so much music constantly being played. My mother played piano, my father sang, and we were always surrounded in music. One of my earliest memories was in a house in East Orange. Saturdays we would clean the house, and my mother would play Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, the whole album. I just remember hearing “Isn’t She Lovely” and pretending to iron. So from a very young age there was a lot of music.

When I was nine years old, or something around that age, I found a 45 record in the basem*nt that belonged to my mother, and I had one of those little record players that you carry in a little suitcase, and that was the only record that would fit in my personal record player, so I played it. Whatever the song was it touched me, it moved me, and I realized that I wanted to find more of those little records. That’s what I used to call them. “Where are the little records? I want to find these little records,” and went into the basem*nt and just unearthed tons and tons of these records from my mother’s childhood and her youth. So here I am eight, nine years old, everybody else was listening to New Edition and whatever current group is on the radio. And I’m listening to Shep and the Limelites, and Gladys Knight and the Pips, and all these older groups, and really loving it and becoming — just doused myself, doused myself in all this music and all this musical history. They really were my teachers, my musical teachers. I didn’t go to Juilliard, or I wasn’t classically trained, but by listening — you know what I mean — I grew an appreciation for certain musical philosophies and ideas and concepts. I understood what drums and bass and all different types of instrumentation were, just by virtue of my exposure to this music. I would fall asleep to it. You always talk about how students who don’t want to study put your book under the pillow and sleep, but I literally fell asleep with the music. And I think there’s so much of that I soaked up even in my dreams.

What would you put on to fall asleep?

Lauryn Hill: What’s Going On, Marvin Gaye. I just remember playing the first side over and over again. It was one of those old record players. After I moved up from the little suitcase record player there was a bigger record player that my grandmother had given to me, and it was one of those old arms that — grrr — when you pressed the repeat, it turned and went down. I used to play my records aloud until one night my mother was like, “This is too loud. I’m not having it,” and so I put on headphones. But in order for me to listen to the records, the headphones didn’t stretch all the way to my bed from the record player, so I had to sleep on the floor in order to hear the records. And that’s where I slept until college. I slept on the floor right next to the record player until I was probably 19 years old, really. I just started sleeping on a bed again because my records, that was their space, the bed. I just stayed on the floor listening to this music from morning ’til night.

Do you still need music to go to sleep?

Lauryn Hill: Actually, to be very honest with you, I don’t listen to a lot of music at all anymore — anymore at all. I think that’s very bizarre too, because it was such a comfort zone for me. But I don’t know if I had my fill, but I don’t listen to a lot of music anymore, because I’m creating it now. Everything takes place in a season. There was a season when that’s all I did was listen. Now I’m just in a place where I don’t listen, I create. And if I do listen there are specific things that I listen to, and for specific reasons. I’m no longer listening for the — I won’t say “I no longer…” but I rarely listen for the sheer pleasure. I’m listening for the tool, I’m listening for the instrument, I’m listening for the art. I’m listening for, “Boy, that was crazy what they just did! Boy, that changed…” You know what I mean? It’s very weird.

Do you miss listening to music just for pleasure?

Lauryn Hill: I do. I think that part of that is why I’m making music now, is to make it for other people to listen to for pleasure. And hopefully, later on maybe they’ll listen to it and go, “That bass line, boy, did you hear the way those drums interacted with that?” Or, “That change…” You know what I mean? So I think we all have a certain corner to hold. Earlier this year Curtis Mayfield passed away, and there was a memorial, and they asked me to sing at the memorial. And I was realizing that what Curtis represented in the ’60s and ’70s… it’s like there’s a season, and it’s not really about the messenger per se, it’s more about the message. And how he had a time where he had to hold it. Because a lot of people were singing love songs and other things. He had a very political, spiritual message. Even though it was entertaining, you enjoyed it and you could dance to it, there was this very heavy value. And as I listened to his eulogy, and I listened to the music — music that I grew up listening to — it just dawned on me that our generation’s no different. Someone has to hold it. Everyone else is being indulgent, doing whatever they want to do. Someone has to be responsible so that that music reaches and touches a specific core. That may not be me. I might lose my mind tomorrow. But it’s got to be somebody.

What other people inspired you growing up?

Lauryn Hill: Family. There’s no cliché behind that.I’m in a very close-knit, very, very tight family. My grandmother had 13 kids, so we had a lot of family — like 50, 60 grandchildren — and we all lived in Jersey, relatively in the same area. So every time there was something, my entire family was there. And I just believed everybody’s family was like that. We were always there for each other. There was a lot of love.

How many siblings do you have?

Lauryn Hill: I only have one. I have a brother.My grandmother was such a matriarch that through her children, and then their children, this love, this family structure, this close-knit family structure was implanted in all of us. It really helped to give me the confidence. To know that you have family to go back to is a help. It doesn’t always happen biologically. Sometimes God gives you family in other forms, but I was very blessed. I have a very strong biological family.

Is your brother older?

Lauryn Hill: Yeah, he’s older, Malaney.

Are you close?

Lauryn Hill: Yes, we are. My brother’s so funny. Every day I remember a lot of the things we did growing up. As a matter of fact, he was my first group. We were a music group together. We had a song called “Let’s Be Friends.” He played the acoustic and I sang. It was a pretty bad song, but those early seeds are planted. They were planted, definitely.

Were there books that were important to you when you were growing up?

Lauryn Hill: Honestly, not very many. I would get my books via my mother’s reading. I would sit there, she’d read certain books, and I’d go, “Ma, tell me about it.” And I’m sorry I didn’t pick them up myself. I didn’t do that until a little bit later. I think as a child I was into Ramona Quimby by Beverly Cleary. Yes, Ramona Quimby Age 8, things like that. But I was never an extensive reader until later.

I try not to have a day pass where I don’t read something from the Bible, for example. It’s like my sustenance to me. If the entire week is a battlefield, it’s sort of like that parachute with the box of reserves that come in the middle of the war: food and water and the toothbrush and toilet paper. It’s like, “Thank you!” You know? So my reading is definitely… I was very active. I was always all over the place trying to do a million things, just into this activity. If you asked me when I was 14 what I wanted to be: “Activist, first, is my occupation. I am an activist.” After it was activist, it was, “I need to be a doctor,” and then, “I’m going to minor in law,” and this double major. Until I got into college and I was like, “Whoa, wait a minute. This is… wait! I haven’t even picked a major yet and this responsibility, and perhaps I should focus.” Every day is a lesson in focus for me, and not buying into the world’s concept of what you have to be. I really try every day to be individual and not just in my style or my look or my music, but in my approach to life. I don’t want to be religious, I want to be spiritual. Anybody can be religious. Some people jog religiously. You don’t want to be that, you want to be spiritual. You want to have a relationship with God as opposed to doing what everyone else does. It’s about having that unique approach and finding out what works for you. What works for you may not work for someone else, but that’s exciting.

You began to perform in public at an early age. Were you encouraged by your parents?

Lauryn Hill: Definitely, definitely, definitely encouraged, definitely!When they could have easily said no or, “We have no interest. We’re not going to drive you to this audition. We’re not going to allow you guys to practice and play the music in the living room.” When they could have easily done that, they didn’t. And just very, very meaningful. My parents really took a heavy, very serious interest in my creativity from the time I was very young. And not for the sake of — they didn’t know what would come of it, just because I enjoyed it. To me that’s a reflection of love, when someone can see you enjoying yourself, and want to participate, or want to encourage, or want to help you to do something that you enjoy. It wasn’t about “making her a star,” it was just, “Hey she likes to do this, let’s support it.”

Did acting come before music?

Lauryn Hill: Actually the music came before the acting. But while I was doing music I found myself meeting people who acted, and they exposed me to that field. And I was kind of like, “Hey, all right, I’ll try it,” always thinking, “Well, music is my first love.” And I just stumbled — I know when I tell you I stumbled upon all this, actually I didn’t stumble, because there are no accidents. But I didn’t have that intense ambition to be a musician or an actress. I just enjoyed it, and if there was an opportunity, hey, I’ll go. And by enjoying it, because I loved it, it enabled me to get better at what I was doing, because there was a love behind it. It wasn’t like, “I’ve got to do this.” It wasn’t just naked ambition. I really enjoyed what I was doing. And all the while that I enjoyed it, I was happy doing it. I was content doing it, whether it was for three squirrels in the park or with three acorns as compensation. It didn’t matter to me. Because we loved it so much, I think that that was a reflection to others, I think that they saw that. That, to me, penetrated the minds and the hearts of people more than, “Hey, look how well we can play.” It was something else that was communicated, by the music and by the artistry. And that created opportunity.

It sounds like you were pretty sophisticated at a young age. Were you a ham?

Lauryn Hill: Definitely. But I don’t think very sophisticated. I think that was just some straight ghetto singing into the hairbrush in the mirror. There was nothing sophisticated about it at all. Where I grew up, everyone was like that. Especially in my family, there was not an abundance of wealth, but there was an abundance of love. So there was always humor, and there was joy and there was comfort and there was this environment just to have a good time.

In having a good time, sometimes — oh! — you stumble upon a talent. Wow, like, say I’m going to sing this song. “Hey, you can sing, did you know that, girl?” “I can? Let me take this a little more seriously.” But it was just something that we all did. It really was the performance part of humanity. I think I was just acting out on my humanity, on this gift that God gave me, and just being a kid. Really being a kid. And if I became sophisticated while I was doing it, if that took place, then I didn’t know about it, because I certainly wasn’t trying to. I just tried to sing that song just like Whitney Houston. You know what I mean? That really was the goal at that point. But if you love something, if you love something and if you’re committed and diligent — the things that happen! Some people who are blessed with gifts — but then there are other people who can work toward — even with the gift that I have now, I mean, I’ve leaned on God for so long. “Hey, God, you just gave me this gift, and I’m just going to go out there and sing.” But it’s only now that I’m realizing how much larger and how expansive my gift becomes when I actually pay attention to it and try to practice and try to perfect it. “I’m not going to warm up, I’m just going to go in the studio and I’m going to sing this song and inspiration will take me…” and yes, that’s true, we are inspired to do things and definitely. But now I’m understanding that — like in the Bible, for example, when it talked about David, it always said that David was a skillful player. He played cunningly. So that took practice. And I’m not afraid of that anymore. That’s exciting to me.

What kind of work was your dad in?

Lauryn Hill: Boy, that’s an interesting question. My mother’s an educator, but I didn’t know what my father did for the first 15 years of my life. Everybody who asked me I would say he works with computers or something, because he was a consultant and consulting is such a vague term. But my father, he was a computer consultant, and only now that I do some consulting sometimes I understand exactly what consulting means. But my father, he was brilliant, because he was just exposed to so much culture and he exposed us to so much culture. I remember being seven years old, wanting to go to International House of Pancakes on Saturday, and my father takes us to Dim Sum, which is like a Chinese breakfast, and me being like, “What?” but really learning and enjoying and appreciating culture that wasn’t just my own from a very young age.

Is he still around?

Lauryn Hill: Yes, definitely still around.

How have your parents reacted to your phenomenal success?

Lauryn Hill: They, like everyone else, have just been carried away. I’m only kidding! They’ve lost it completely. No, my parents are very humble, very real. My mother’s always very honest with me. And I’m thankful for that, because I need that. You need someone who just can penetrate the façade and say, “I knew you when, and let’s go back there right now.” So they’ve definitely handled it well.

How old were you when you started performing professionally?

Lauryn Hill: I probably was about 13. I guess “professionally” would be the first time I entered into a studio, or film, and maybe television, and performed for money. It was probably 13, 14 years old, something like that. Once again, all these opportunities were just presented. I did not go out and pursue them, and I was always surprised. I was always very surprised at how people received what I did. I was always like, “Really? I said those lines okay?” I think there was a certain amount of seriousness. From a child, I understood that. I think that my work ethic — I think the work ethic that was established in my family — was also something very important. If you plant the seed, if you sow sparingly and reap sparingly. If you sow in abundance you’ll reap in abundance. So that was always sort of in us from very young. So even the things that I love, I tried to put a couple seeds, a bunch of seeds in the ground and see what sprung up. Sometimes it was acting and sometimes it was music. But whatever it was I continued to plant.

You talked about having a spiritual sandwich from your mom.

Lauryn Hill: Yeah. Actually a friend of mine brought that to my attention.She (my mother) gave me a piece of bread, which was love and encouragement. The correction was the meat, the substance. And then she would sandwich that, sandwich that with another piece of bread, which was love and encouragement. That was very important in shaping and molding our morality, our understanding of ourselves, making sure that we didn’t think we were better than or less than anyone, feeling no more worthy or no less worthy than anyone else. All that was really, really crucial and prepared me for what I am now. That is very important preparation.

How did it feel to win your first Grammy Award?

Lauryn Hill: The first Grammy I won was with the Fugees. Oh boy, I’m not good at these answers, because I don’t know the response for that one. I guess I was honored. You know what I mean? But the honor to me has less to do with the award. You know what I’m saying? To me that translates in the relationship that I have with the audience, and if my music is helpful to them, that’s the award. If I never won a Grammy, I would be satisfied, if in fact I could help people, because it’s really, really not about that. I don’t say that because it sounds like something cool to say, really. If those NARAS (National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences) knew how we’re treating them! I’m only kidding!

Lauryn Hill: My mother has all the awards and stuff, because if I walked downstairs every day and saw all my achievements it would be so easy to become complacent. “I’ve got all these and those! I don’t need to do anything else.” But life is continued work. It’s constant learning. I don’t even — the whole concept of retirement I don’t even buy into. We should constantly be working. Maybe not physically working, but we could be spiritually — emotionally — working toward bettering ourselves and bettering the lives of others around us. So I get really afraid of those little comforts, those things that make us feel like we did something great, because I’ve done nothing. I’ve done nothing. I mean that sincerely.

I think it was Kahlil Gibran who said, “Work is love made visible.”

Lauryn Hill: “Faith without works is dead.”

So in other words, the work is a constant.

Lauryn Hill: It’s constant.There’s a time for rest, but I don’t believe in getting comfortable just because everyone says you’ve arrived. That’s not what it’s all about. Once you compromise yourself in one way, you compromise yourself in another way. And you’ve just opened the door to compromise, mediocrity, settling. I don’t mean — when I say mediocrity I don’t mean — I mean, that we should constantly be aspiring to reach higher and higher and higher. We should never be comfortable where we are. We should always be aspiring to know more, and to better ourselves, and to improve ourselves. To improve ourselves, because that’s how we improve the world around us, by working within us. You improve yourself, light up the corner that you live on. You may not touch a gazillion lives, but you can light up your own space, light up your home.

Do you remember the movie Chariots of Fire? The young runner is called to be a missionary, but he says, “When I run, I feel His pleasure.” Can you relate to that?

Lauryn Hill: Certainly the race that we’re running is not given to the fastest, but the one who endures.

When you compose, when you sing, do you feel that?

Lauryn Hill: Without question.As long as I remember that the glory is His and not my own. When I confuse that, I get in trouble. When I remember the proper hierarchy, because we have it all wrong. We think that we glorify ourselves, and the object is to glorify God first, and in doing that you become glorified, you get glorified. There are certain times when, of late especially, that God has shown me, “Just be quiet…” — because I started to feel like I always had to expound and say something profound — is to stop thinking. Or if I could tell you that I was totally unprepared, I can’t prepare anything because I always just — I just drop it, because it’s just too cerebral. And what I’m feeling in here, I have all this boiling energy inside, and it just doesn’t work, with my intellectual mind. The two are like… crshhh! So one has to take control, and you have to suppress that spirit, or suppress my brain. It usually works out the best when I suppress and — not kill, not destroy — but just suppress, allow my spirit to navigate the rest of my devices, instead of allowing those things to have control over my spirit. Because I have a considerable amount of confidence, but it’s not in me. It’s the work that God’s doing in me that makes me confident.

Do you have a conception of the American Dream? Do you have a take on that?

Lauryn Hill: I don’t have an American Dream. I have a dream, because my dream relates to the entire world, to be honest with you. That is that the entire world find — have — salvation. That the entire world have joy. That the entire world know God, and have peace, and have His rest and His happiness. For me to limit that and say that’s an American Dream, that would be far too limiting. That’s a dream for this entire world, that we really all have the presence of God in our lives, because I can’t give anyone anything more. God showed me I can sing songs about love. I can sing songs about me, and there are people that enjoy those songs. But when they’re desperately, desperately in need of help, what will my music do? How will it help them? Will it redeem them? Will it save them? Will it fight that battle for them? It’s just a song.

You can get amazing solace from hearing that someone else has suffered too.

Lauryn Hill: That’s the point, you see. It’s not about self-promotion. It’s about reality, and the fact that I’m not more worthy or less worthy than anyone else.

We’re in this together.

Lauryn Hill: We’re in this together. Someone wrote me a letter the other day, and there was a quote in it and it said, “Be careful how you speak to people. Because everyone is in a battle.”

Thank you so much for a great interview.

Lauryn Hill: Okay, thank you.