105 Facts About Lauryn Hill

Lauryn Noelle Hill was born on May 26,1975 and is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer.

Lauryn Hill is often regarded as one of the greatest rappers of all time, as well as one of the most influential musicians of her generation.

Lauryn Hill is known for being the frontwoman of The Fugees, and for her 1998 solo album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which became one of the best-selling albums of all time.

Lauryn Hill has won many accolades, including eight Grammy Awards, the most for a female rapper to this day.

Lauryn Hill starred in the film Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.

Lauryn Hill then collaborated with Nas and Aretha Franklin.

Lauryn Hill was the first woman rapper to earn a No 1 on each chart.

At the 41st Grammy Awards, Lauryn Hill set a record for the most nominations in one night for a woman, with ten.

Lauryn Hill won five awards including Album of the Year, and became the first hip hop act to win the award.

Ultimately, Lauryn Hill dropped out of the public eye, only periodically releasing singles.

Lauryn Hill has been ranked as one of the Greatest Singers of All Time by Consequence of Sound and Rolling Stone.

Lauryn Noelle Hill was born on May 26,1975, in East Orange, New Jersey.

Lauryn Hill's mother, Valerie Hill, was an English teacher and her father, Mal Hill, a computer and management consultant.

Lauryn Hill has one older brother named Malaney who was born in 1972.

In middle school, Lauryn Hill performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" before a basketball game.

In 1988, Lauryn Hill appeared as an Amateur Night contestant on It's Showtime at the Apollo.

Lauryn Hill sang her version of the Smokey Robinson track "Who's Lovin' You", garnering an initially harsh reaction from the crowd.

Lauryn Hill attended Columbia High School, where she was a member of the track team, cheerleading squad and was a classmate of actor Zach Braff.

Lauryn Hill took violin lessons, went to dance class, and founded the school's gospel choir.

Lauryn Hill was initially only a singer, but then learned to rap too; instead of modeling herself on female rappers like Salt-N-Pepa and MC Lyte, she preferred male rappers like Ice Cube and developed her flow from listening to them.

Lauryn Hill began her acting career in 1991 appearing with Jean in Club XII, MC Lyte's Off-Broadway hip-hop rendering of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.

Later that year, Lauryn Hill began appearing on the soap opera As the World Turns in a recurring role as troubled teenager Kira Johnson.

Lauryn Hill subsequently co-starred alongside Whoopi Goldberg in the 1993 release Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, playing Rita Louise Watson, an inner-city Catholic school teenager with a surly, rebellious attitude.

Lauryn Hill appeared in Steven Soderbergh's 1993 motion picture King of the Lauryn Hill, in a minor but pivotal role as a 1930s gum-popping elevator operator.

Pras, Lauryn Hill and Jean renamed their group Fugees, a derivative of the word "refugee", which was a derogatory term for Haitian Americans.

At 21 years old, Lauryn Hill was still living at home with her parents.

Lauryn Hill had been enrolled at Columbia University during this period, and considered majoring in history as she became a sophomore, but left after about a year of total studies once sales of The Score went into the millions.

In 1996, Lauryn Hill founded the Refugee Project, a non-profit outreach organization that sought to transform the attitudes and behavior of at-risk urban youth.

Part of this was Camp Lauryn Hill, which offered stays in the Catskill Mountains for such youngsters; another was production of an annual Halloween haunted house in East Orange.

Lauryn Hill raised money for Haitian refugees, supported clean water well-building projects in Kenya and Uganda, and staged a rap concert in Harlem to promote voter registration.

Meanwhile, in the summer of 1996 Lauryn Hill had met Rohan Marley, a son of Bob Marley and a former University of Miami football player.

Lauryn Hill subsequently began a relationship with him, while still involved with Jean.

Lauryn Hill became pregnant in late 1996, and on August 3,1997, Marley and Lauryn Hill's first child, Zion David, was born.

Lauryn Hill had a cameo appearance in the 1997 film Hav Plenty.

In 1998, Lauryn Hill took up another small, but important role in the film Restaurant; Entertainment Weekly praised her portrayal of the protagonist's pregnant former girlfriend as bringing vigor to the film.

Wyclef Jean initially did not support Lauryn Hill recording a solo album, but eventually offered his production help; Lauryn Hill turned him down.

Indeed, Lauryn Hill's pregnancy revived her from a period of writer's block.

In terms of production, Lauryn Hill collaborated with a group of musicians known as New Ark, consisting of Vada Nobles, Rasheem Pugh, Tejumold Newton, and Johari Newton.

Lauryn Hill later said that she wanted to "write songs that lyrically move me and have the integrity of reggae and the knock of hip-hop and the instrumentation of classic soul" and that the production on the album was intended to make the music sound raw and not computer-aided.

Lauryn Hill spoke of pressure from her label to emulate Prince, wherein all tracks would be credited as written and produced by the artist with little outside help.

Lauryn Hill wanted to be appreciated as an auteur as much as Jean had within the Fugees.

Lauryn Hill appeared on several magazine covers, including Time, Esquire, Rolling Stone, Teen People, and The New York Times Fashion Magazine.

In February 1999, Lauryn Hill received four awards at the 30th Annual NAACP Image Awards.

In early 2000, Lauryn Hill was one of the producers to share the Grammy Award for Album of the Year awarded for Santana's 1999 multi-million-selling Supernatural, whereon she had written, produced, and rapped on the track "Do You Like the Way".

Lauryn Hill began writing a screenplay about the life of Bob Marley, in the production of which she planned to play his wife Rita.

Lauryn Hill began producing a romantic comedy about soul food with a working title of Sauce, and accepted a starring role in the film adaptation of Toni Morrison's novel Beloved; she later dropped out of both projects due to pregnancy.

Lauryn Hill reportedly turned down acting roles in the remake for A Star Is Born, Dreamgirls, Charlie's Angels, The Bourne Identity, The Mexican, The Matrix Reloaded, and The Matrix Revolutions.

Lauryn Hill disliked not being able to go out of her house to do simple errands without having to worry about her physical appearance.

Lauryn Hill fired her management team and began attending Bible study classes five days a week; she stopped doing interviews, watching television and listening to music.

Lauryn Hill started associating with a "spiritual advisor" named Brother Anthony.

Some familiar with Lauryn Hill believe Anthony more resembled a cult leader than a spiritual advisor, and thought his guidance probably inspired much of Lauryn Hill's more controversial public behavior.

In July 2001, while pregnant with her third child, Lauryn Hill unveiled her new material to a small crowd, for a taping of an MTV Unplugged special.

Lauryn Hill was followed a year later by their fourth, John Nesta.

Lauryn Hill later said that she and Marley "have had long periods of separation over the years".

In 2004, Lauryn Hill contributed a new song, "The Passion", to The Passion of the Christ: Songs.

Around this time, Lauryn Hill began selling a pay-per-view music video of the song "Social Drugs" through her website.

Lauryn Hill began touring on her own, although to mixed reviews; often arriving late to concerts, performing unpopular reconfigurations of her songs and sporting an exaggerated appearance.

In June 2007, Sony Records said Lauryn Hill had been recording through the past decade, had accumulated considerable unreleased material and had re-entered the studio with the goal of making a new album.

Lauryn Hill, which featured cuts from Miseducation, various soundtracks contributions and other "unreleased" songs, was released.

Also in June 2007, Lauryn Hill released a new song, "Lose Myself", on the soundtrack to the film Surf's Up.

Lauryn Hill later said that she and Marley "have [had] a long and complex history about which many inaccuracies have been reported since the beginning" and that they both valued their privacy.

Reports in mid-2008 claimed that Columbia Records then believed Lauryn Hill to be on hiatus.

Lauryn Hill writes it in the mirror if the mirror smokes up.

One of the few public appearances Lauryn Hill made in 2008 was at a Martha Stewart book-signing in New Jersey, perplexing some in the press.

Lauryn Hill performed two shows for the tour and passed out on stage during the start of her second performance and left the stage.

In January 2010, Lauryn Hill returned to the live stage and performed in stops across New Zealand and Australia on the Raggamuffin Music Festival.

Many of the songs that Lauryn Hill had performed and recorded over the past six years were included on an April 2010 unofficial compilation album titled Khulami Phase.

Lauryn Hill appeared at the Harmony Festival in Santa Rosa, California, in June 2010, her first live American performance in several years.

Lauryn Hill increased the tempo and urgency from the original recording, but at times had difficulty in communicating with her band.

In Spring 2011, Lauryn Hill performed at the Coachella Valley Music Festival, New Orleans Jazz Fest, and at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.

In July 2011, Lauryn Hill gave birth to her sixth child, Micah, her first not with Rohan Marley; the father remains publicly unknown.

In February 2012, Lauryn Hill performed a new song titled "Fearless Vampire Killer", during a sold-out performance at the Warner Theater in Washington, DC In late 2012, Lauryn Hill toured with rapper Nas; her portion of the tour, titled Black Rage, is named after her song, released October 30.

In June 2012, Lauryn Hill appeared in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey in Newark and pleaded guilty to the charges.

Lauryn Hill's attorney said she would make restitution for the back taxes she owed.

On May 4,2013, Lauryn Hill released her first official single in over a decade, "Neurotic Society ".

Lauryn Hill responded that the song was not targeted at any particular group but was instead focused on anyone hiding behind neurotic behavior.

Lauryn Hill had faced a possible sentence of as long as 36 months, and the sentence given took into account her lack of a prior criminal record and her six minor-aged children.

Lauryn Hill was released from prison on October 4,2013, a few days early for good behavior, and began her home confinement and probationary periods.

Lauryn Hill put out a single called "Consumerism" that she had finished, via verbal and e-mailed instructions, while incarcerated.

Lauryn Hill continued to draw media attention for her erratic behavior, appearing late twice in the same day for sets at Voodoo Fest in November 2014.

In May 2015, Lauryn Hill canceled her scheduled concert outside Tel Aviv in Israel following a social media campaign from activists promoting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.

Lauryn Hill said she had wanted to perform a show in Ramallah in the West Bank but logistical problems had proved too great.

Lauryn Hill was originally supposed to record only two songs for the record, but ended up recording six.

Lauryn Hill served as a producer on the compilation alongside Robert Glasper.

Lauryn Hill's example is clearly a form of sustenance to a generation needing to find theirs.

Lauryn Hill had been singing this song during live performances for several years prior to the recording for the movie.

Lauryn Hill has six children, five of them with Rohan Marley, the son of reggae musician Bob Marley.

Lauryn Hill is widely considered to be one of the greatest rappers of all time, and has often been called the greatest female rapper.

In 2015, Billboard named her the seventh greatest rapper of all time on their "10 Best Rappers of All Time" list, with Lauryn Hill being the only female rapper on the list.

Music critic Brandon Tensley argued that "few artists have marked culture as profoundly as Lauryn Hill did with her solo debut".

Lauryn Hill was included on the NPR list of the '50 Great Voices'; and on the Consequence of Sound list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.

The "Lauryn Hill effect" is going to be very profound"; while Missy Elliott added that "women are taking a stand and trying to get their foot in everything.

Lauryn Hill has often been cited as one of the most influential entertainers of her generation.

John Legend attributes his early career success and his launch into the music industry to Lauryn Hill, who gave him his first major opportunity as a pianist on the song "Everything Is Everything".

Lauryn Hill has been credited as one of the people who've helped normalize locs, and introduced them to pop culture.

Lauryn Hill emerged as the feminine lead in The Fugees and broke Grammy records as a soloist, all while popularizing dreadlocks in the mainstream.

Lauryn Hill is often named as a leading contributor in the modern popularization of the hoop earring, which first grew in popularity among black women in the 1970s, before reaching a wider audience after female hip hop artists like Hill wore them in the 1980s and 1990s.

Lauryn Hill later performed at Abloh's memorial service after he died from a rare form of cancer in December 2021.

Lauryn Hill has won numerous accolades throughout her career, including eight Grammy Awards, the most won by a female rapper, six MTV Video Music Awards, four NAACP Image Awards, four Guinness World Records, and three American Music Awards.

Lauryn Hill won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album as a member of The Fugees, for their album The Score, becoming the first woman to win the award.

The Score peaked at No 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, making Hill the first female rapper to top the chart as a member of The Fugees; her first solo studio album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, peaked at No 1, making Hill the first solo female hip hop act to reach No 1 on that chart.

At the 41st Annual Grammy Awards, Hill received ten Grammy Award nominations and won five that night, including Album of the Year, with The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill being the first Hip hop album to win the award.

Lauryn Hill set the record for most nominations for a female artist in one night, broke the record at the time previously set by Carole King for the most wins by a female artist in one night, and became the first female rapper to win the Best New Artist award.

In 1999, following the success of her first solo album, Lauryn Hill landed on the cover of Time magazine, being the only black musician to land on the cover during that decade.

In 2021, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America, making Hill the first female hip hop artist to ever receive a Diamond certification in the United States.