Lauryn Hill Interview (page: 3 / 6) Singer, Songwriter & Record Producer	Print Interview

Are there experiences you recall that led you into music?

Lauryn Hill: Definitely. My parents had a love for music. There were so many records, so much music constantly being played. My mother played piano, my father sang, and we were always surrounded in music. One of my earliest memories was in a house in East Orange. Saturdays we would clean the house, and my mother would play Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life, the whole album. I just remember hearing "Isn't She Lovely" and pretending to iron. So from a very young age there was a lot of music.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. When I was nine years old, or something around that age, I found a 45 record in the basement that belonged to my mother, and I had one of those little record players that you carry in a little suitcase, and that was the only record that would fit in my personal record player, so I played it. Whatever the song was it touched me, it moved me, and I realized that I wanted to find more of those little records. That's what I used to call them. "Where are the little records? I want to find these little records," and went into the basement and just unearthed tons and tons of these records from my mother's childhood and her youth. So here I am eight, nine years old, everybody else was listening to New Edition and whatever current group is on the radio. And I'm listening to Shep and the Limelites, and Gladys Knight and the Pips, and all these older groups, and really loving it and becoming -- just doused myself, doused myself in all this music and all this musical history. They really were my teachers, my musical teachers. I didn't go to Juilliard, or I wasn't classically trained, but by listening -- you know what I mean -- I grew an appreciation for certain musical philosophies and ideas and concepts. I understood what drums and bass and all different types of instrumentation were, just by virtue of my exposure to this music. I would fall asleep to it. You always talk about how students who don't want to study put your book under the pillow and sleep, but I literally fell asleep with the music. And I think there's so much of that I soaked up even in my dreams.

[ Key to Success ] Passion

What would you put on to fall asleep?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Lauryn Hill: What's Going On, Marvin Gaye. I just remember playing the first side over and over again. It was one of those old record players. After I moved up from the little suitcase record player there was a bigger record player that my grandmother had given to me, and it was one of those old arms that -- grrr -- when you pressed the repeat, it turned and went down. I used to play my records aloud until one night my mother was like, "This is too loud. I'm not having it," and so I put on headphones. But in order for me to listen to the records, the headphones didn't stretch all the way to my bed from the record player, so I had to sleep on the floor in order to hear the records. And that's where I slept until college. I slept on the floor right next to the record player until I was probably 19 years old, really. I just started sleeping on a bed again because my records, that was their space, the bed. I just stayed on the floor listening to this music from morning 'til night.

Do you still need music to go to sleep?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Lauryn Hill: Actually, to be very honest with you, I don't listen to a lot of music at all anymore -- anymore at all. I think that's very bizarre too, because it was such a comfort zone for me. But I don't know if I had my fill, but I don't listen to a lot of music anymore, because I'm creating it now. Everything takes place in a season. There was a season when that's all I did was listen. Now I'm just in a place where I don't listen, I create. And if I do listen there are specific things that I listen to, and for specific reasons. I'm no longer listening for the -- I won't say "I no longer..." but I rarely listen for the sheer pleasure. I'm listening for the tool, I'm listening for the instrument, I'm listening for the art. I'm listening for, "Boy, that was crazy what they just did! Boy, that changed..." You know what I mean? It's very weird.

Do you miss listening to music just for pleasure?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Lauryn Hill: I do. I think that part of that is why I'm making music now, is to make it for other people to listen to for pleasure. And hopefully, later on maybe they'll listen to it and go, "That bass line, boy, did you hear the way those drums interacted with that?" Or, "That change..." You know what I mean? So I think we all have a certain corner to hold. Earlier this year Curtis Mayfield passed away, and there was a memorial, and they asked me to sing at the memorial. And I was realizing that what Curtis represented in the '60s and '70s... it's like there's a season, and it's not really about the messenger per se, it's more about the message. And how he had a time where he had to hold it. Because a lot of people were singing love songs and other things. He had a very political, spiritual message. Even though it was entertaining, you enjoyed it and you could dance to it, there was this very heavy value. And as I listened to his eulogy, and I listened to the music -- music that I grew up listening to -- it just dawned on me that our generation's no different. Someone has to hold it. Everyone else is being indulgent, doing whatever they want to do. Someone has to be responsible so that that music reaches and touches a specific core. That may not be me. I might lose my mind tomorrow. But it's got to be somebody.

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