Hill, 35, is scheduled to perform in a few shows as part of the lineup of the Rock the Bells tour. In the past few days, a previously unheard track titled “Repercussions” which is purported to be of her singing has hit the Web. The notoriously private singer also recently gave an interview to National Public Radio, sounding very much like a star on the comeback trail.
“I’m starting to get excited again,” Hill told NPR. “Believe it or not, I think what people are attracted to about me, if anything, is my passion. People got exposed to my passion through music and song first.”
Not everyone is convinced.
“I’m not sure if there is a comeback,” said Gail Mitchell, senior editor covering R&B and hip-hop at Billboard magazine. “Maybe that interview with NPR was to prime people, but until there is an announcement or new music, I don’t think we can say that anything is set.”
“Is she coming back or is she just doing what she has always done?” said Sandra Rose, who runs the popular gossip site SandraRose.com. “She performs, makes some money and then she disappears again.”
It’s not quite the career the world expected of Hill after her hit album, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,” was released in 1998 and went on to garner the singer 10 Grammy nominations (the most of any female performer at the time) and five awards.
It seemed as though the singer — who had initially found fame as a member of the rap group the Fugees and as an actress who co-starred in 1993’s “Sister Act 2” — could do no wrong as the reigning princess of neo-soul.
“She just had a deep soul that reminded so many of what was truly real and important,” said Karu F. Daniels, executive entertainment producer at AOL Black Voices. “She wasn’t talking about the bubble-gum stuff. And what she was doing was far from gimmicky.
“What she spoke about — and how she emoted it through song — is what was most appealing,” Daniels added. “Listening to her music today — 11 years later — still sounds like it’s new.”
But soon there were rumblings of eccentricities. During a Grammy acceptance speech, she took to the podium clutching a bible from which she read Psalm 40.
There was a lawsuit brought by a group of musicians who said they didn’t receive proper credit for their work on “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.” Essence magazine reported that in 1998 a quartet of music industry pros, Johari Newton, Rasheem Pugh, Vada No-bles and Tejumold Newton, sued Hill for songwriting and production credit on “Miseducation” and that the lawsuit was later settled out of court.
There was also much speculation as to whether she was legally married to Rohan Marley, son of music legend Bob Marley, and father of her five children. He spoke with People magazine two years ago, saying of Hill’s life away from the industry: “She loves [suburban life], being with her children, seeing them grow and instilling our teachings of righteousness to them.”
There also was talk about what some saw as her mystical side. In 2003, Rolling Stone published an article that included details of an alleged friendship with “Brother Anthony, a shadowy spiritual adviser” she reportedly became close with in 2000.
It was also in 2003 that Entertainment Weekly reported that during a Christmas concert performance at the Vatican, Hill launched into a tirade against the Catholic Church, saying ”God has been a witness to the corruption of his leadership, to the exploitation and abuses. It is the least one can say about the clergy,” according to Rome newspaper La Repubblica.
She recorded an MTV “Unplugged” album that was as much a confessional session as it was a musical performance. “I had created this public persona, this public illusion, and it held me hostage,” Hill said during one of many interludes in which she talked to the audience. “I couldn’t be a real person, because you’re too afraid of what your public will say.”
Hill, a New Jersey native who as a youngster performed the Smokey Robinson hit “Who’s Loving You” at the famed Apollo Theater’s Amateur Night, always seemed more at home on stage than off. “I was just a little girl, skinny legs, a press and curl, my mother always thought I’d be a star,” she sang on the autobiographical single “Every Ghetto, Every City.”
Blogger Rose said she met Hill at an early listening party for the Fugees and the performer seemed ill at ease in the spotlight even then, uncomfortable making eye contact and softspoken.
“I believe she just couldn’t handle the fame,” Rose said. “You have that a lot with many of the musical geniuses, including Michael Jackson. I think she just lost it.”
