Lauryn Hill is a mythical figure in the music industry, not only because she made one of the greatest albums of all time (the very best, according to Apple Music) but also because of the choices she made next.
Following the widespread success of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which included five Grammy wins in 1999 (Hill is still the last Black woman to win Album of the Year), the singer retired from making music. She was 23 at the time.
Since then she has released one live album, 2002’s MTV Unplugged No. 2.0, and a small number of isolated singles. She continued to perform her back catalog through the years but never put out a new album again.
Why did Lauryn Hill never make music again?
Much has been said about Lauryn Hill’s disappearance from the music scene. According to the singer, pulling back from the public eye was about making sure that she and her family were “safe and good,” Hill told Rolling Stone in 2021. She explained that she was treated like a “troublemaker” for the ways she defied the system and that she felt “unsupported” and “pressured” to make music in ways she didn’t feel true to her identity as an artist.
Hill struggled with fame from the beginning of her career and the commercial success of Miseducation, as well as all its repercussions, clashed directly with how she viewed art and the process of making music. She was also a very spiritual person, sometimes to an extreme degree. Per Rolling Stone, in 2001 the artist became close with a “shadowy spiritual adviser,” described by some as a cult leader, called Brother Anthony, which led to Hill making some unexpected choices such as abruptly firing the majority of her team.
Her appearance on MTV Unplugged in 2001, her first major public appearance in years, naturally gained a unique aura of its own. Hill presented a new set of unfinished originals, went on long rants about faith and God, and at one point broke down in tears while performing “I Gotta Find Peace of Mind.” “I’m crazy and deranged . . . . I’m emotionally unstable,” she said in between songs:
I’m just glad that I don’t have to slave anymore. Music was my love, and because of everything I thought had to accompany my music it became a burden. It just got stolen from me. I said, ‘What is this? How did this thing that I love so much so easily and so quickly turn into something I loath and hate?'”
The reports about what exactly caused Hill to feel this way about the music industry are vague and varied. Was she in an abusive relationship with her Fugees bandmate Wyclef Jean? Was she taken advantage of artistically or otherwise? Or were the cogs of the music industry machine just incompatible with her personality?
For someone who’s as uncompromising as Hill is, it’s not hard to imagine how the greed and dishonesty that we all know define a lot of the darkest corners of the entertainment industry could affect her life. We’ve seen way too many artists break down as the world watches on and places judgment, some of them going down painful journeys that ended in suicide. Lauryn Hill was, at one point, the most impressive musician alive, who was also not even in her mid-twenties. Maybe stepping away was for the best, even if we would have all loved to hear more of her beautiful music.
Of course, there are two sides to every coin, and over the years reports have emerged of Hill not treating her band correctly, being an overly strict and borderline abusive mother, disrespecting fans by showing up late to concerts, and even being sentenced to three months in prison in 2013 for tax evasion. After all, the line between being “hard to work with/a diva” and simply refusing to play the industry’s games and bend to its rules is and forever will be maddeningly thin.
For over a decade now, Hill has teased the making of a second album. Recently, following an appearance on the Tonight Show, her son YG Marley told TMZ that fans had reasons “to be excited about his mom making new tunes.” When the outlet asked the musician about it, she simply smiled and nodded. Until then, we’ll always have The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
