Lauryn Hill

Born in East Orange and raised in South Orange, New Jersey, Lauryn Hill rose to prominence in the mid-1990s with the Fugees, a trio formed with Wyclef Jean and Pras, where hip-hop, soul, reggae and R&B intersect. Her voice, capable of shifting from singing to rapping with the same intensity, marks The Score in 1996, propelled by tracks like Ready or Not and Killing Me Softly. Solo, Lauryn Hill extended this approach with The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in 1998, an album that blends hip-hop soul, neo-soul, gospel, reggae and introspective writing, notably Doo Wop (That Thing), Ex-Factor and Everything Is Everything. In the following years, Lauryn Hill appeared less often in the studio but remained active on stage, with tours where her songs are often rearranged into more organic and fluid versions. She also released MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 in 2002, a live documentary focusing on unreleased compositions with a spare tone. Over the course of her career, Lauryn Hill has also collaborated with artists such as Nas, Mary J. Blige, Aretha Franklin or Santana, while maintaining a somewhat intermittent trajectory marked by periods of retreat, occasional comebacks, and the episodic reforming of the Fugees. Lauryn Hill remains associated with a unique synthesis of rap, soul and social consciousness, developed from New Jersey and extended on stage for more than three decades.