Lauryn Hill Tells NPR She’s Ready To Face Her Future

Lauryn Hill will be featured as part of NPR’s ‘Great American Voices” series on June 28, talking to Zoe Chance on the latest installment of All Things Considered. The reclusive soul singer and former Fugee (and, some would say, greatest female rapper on the planet) is speaking out after many years of silence. Hill says she is making music again, and taking a new approach to her art.

“I think that one of the things I’m trying to do is just open up my range and really sing more,” she tells NPR News. “I think that with the Fugees initially and then even with the Miseducation, there was still very sort of hip-hop oriented singing … in the context of hip hop singing over beats. But singing — people have never really heard me sing. I think if I do record, next time, perhaps, there will be an expanded context. People can hear — a bit more.”

As to why she hasn’t released a proper followup to her solo debut, the Grammy-winning Miseducation of Lauryn Hill yet, she says: “there were a number of different reasons. But partly, the support system that I needed was not necessarily in place. There were things about myself — personal growth things — that I needed to go through and experience in order for me to feel like it was worth it.”

Hill promises more live performances in the future.

You can listen to the interview here.