Well, she showed up. That was the first victory of Lauryn Hill this month when she appeared as a featured performer at the four Rock The Bells shows (dude, we were there!). Seeing her name on the bill was not enough for most fans to trust an actual show. I honestly don’t know where the reputation comes from or if it is just from the fact that the last dozen years have rarely seen the singer emerge for more than a brief cameo and equally immediate disappearance. But what’s next for the beloved singer now that the brief tour is complete?
An album. Yeah, you heard me. MTV is reporting that Lauryn Hill’s followup to the classic Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is “getting closer” to seeing the light of day. While it seems like forever in the making, Hill did seem genuinely happy to be performing again in talking with MTV, seems finally ready to return to the public eye. A big factor seems to be the loss of power in major labels and the amount of quality artists crowding the music landscape.
“It’s a lot going on,” Hill said. “It’s interesting energy. It’s not what it was, it’s different. That doesn’t necessarily means it’s a bad thing — it’s a different thing. Just like any new opportunity, it’s ripe for a lot of different things. You got a lot of young talent out there. Because we don’t necessarily have the same sort of industry complex that used to exist, people don’t always give, I want to say, proper respect to. But they’re doing it in a really kind of unusual, unique and hard-core way. Because the system is not necessarily in place like it used to be.”
Other then saying that the album was getting closer to completion, Hill shared few details on the release. She did note, however, that there won’t be many, if any, collaborations. It’s weird to think that her career began as a collaborative project with The Fugees and now it is something she almost has to work back towards.
“I have respect for what people do,” Hill said. “I also like to hear the eclectics, I like to hear the mixture. There’s a lot of different creative energies out there right now. I respect the different sounds that I’m hearing. It’s been such a long time since I’ve gotten my voice and my ideas [out]. In terms of collaborations, that’s not even something I’ve been thinking about per se. I’m happy that people are still making music. That we still have a platform with which to make music. It’s gonna be interesting to see what the future holds.”
Indeed it is Ms. Hill. And the future looks brighter with her involved.