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

You talked about having a spiritual sandwich from your mom.

Lauryn Hill: Yeah. Actually a friend of mine brought that to my attention.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. She (my mother) gave me a piece of bread, which was love and encouragement. The correction was the meat, the substance. And then she would sandwich that, sandwich that with another piece of bread, which was love and encouragement. That was very important in shaping and molding our morality, our understanding of ourselves, making sure that we didn't think we were better than or less than anyone, feeling no more worthy or no less worthy than anyone else. All that was really, really crucial and prepared me for what I am now. That is very important preparation.

How did it feel to win your first Grammy award?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Lauryn Hill: The first Grammy I won was with the Fugees. Oh boy, I'm not good at these answers, because I don't know the response for that one. I guess I was honored. You know what I mean? But the honor to me has less to do with the award. You know what I'm saying? To me that translates in the relationship that I have with the audience, and if my music is helpful to them, that's the award. If I never won a Grammy, I would be satisfied, if in fact I could help people, because it's really, really not about that. I don't say that because it sounds like something cool to say, really. If those NARAS (National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences) knew how we're treating them! I'm only kidding!

[ Key to Success ] Integrity

Lauryn Hill: My mother has all the awards and stuff, because if I walked downstairs every day and saw all my achievements it would be so easy to become complacent. "I've got all these and those! I don't need to do anything else." But life is continued work. It's constant learning. I don't even -- the whole concept of retirement I don't even buy into. We should constantly be working. Maybe not physically working, but we could be spiritually -- emotionally -- working toward bettering ourselves and bettering the lives of others around us. So I get really afraid of those little comforts, those things that make us feel like we did something great, because I've done nothing. I've done nothing. I mean that sincerely.

I think it was Kahlil Gibran who said, "Work is love made visible."

Lauryn Hill: "Faith without works is dead."

So in other words, the work is a constant.

Lauryn Hill: It's constant.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. There's a time for rest, but I don't believe in getting comfortable just because everyone says you've arrived. That's not what it's all about. Once you compromise yourself in one way, you compromise yourself in another way. And you've just opened the door to compromise, mediocrity, settling. I don't mean -- when I say mediocrity I don't mean -- I mean, that we should constantly be aspiring to reach higher and higher and higher. We should never be comfortable where we are. We should always be aspiring to know more, and to better ourselves, and to improve ourselves. To improve ourselves, because that's how we improve the world around us, by working within us. You improve yourself, light up the corner that you live on. You may not touch a gazillion lives, but you can light up your own space, light up your home.

Do you remember the movie Chariots of Fire? The young runner is called to be a missionary, but he says, "When I run, I feel His pleasure." Can you relate to that?

Lauryn Hill: Certainly the race that we're running is not given to the fastest, but the one who endures.

When you compose, when you sing, do you feel that?

Lauryn Hill: Without question.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. As long as I remember that the glory is His and not my own. When I confuse that, I get in trouble. When I remember the proper hierarchy, because we have it all wrong. We think that we glorify ourselves, and the object is to glorify God first, and in doing that you become glorified, you get glorified. There are certain times when, of late especially, that God has shown me, "Just be quiet..." -- because I started to feel like I always had to expound and say something profound -- is to stop thinking. Or if I could tell you that I was totally unprepared, I can't prepare anything because I always just -- I just drop it, because it's just too cerebral. And what I'm feeling in here, I have all this boiling energy inside, and it just doesn't work, with my intellectual mind. The two are like... crshhh! So one has to take control, and you have to suppress that spirit, or suppress my brain. It usually works out the best when I suppress and -- not kill, not destroy -- but just suppress, allow my spirit to navigate the rest of my devices, instead of allowing those things to have control over my spirit. Because I have a considerable amount of confidence, but it's not in me. It's the work that God's doing in me that makes me confident.

Do you have a conception of the American Dream? Do you have a take on that?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Lauryn Hill: I don't have an American Dream. I have a dream, because my dream relates to the entire world, to be honest with you. That is that the entire world find -- have -- salvation. That the entire world have joy. That the entire world know God, and have peace, and have His rest and His happiness. For me to limit that and say that's an American Dream, that would be far too limiting. That's a dream for this entire world, that we really all have the presence of God in our lives, because I can't give anyone anything more. God showed me I can sing songs about love. I can sing songs about me, and there are people that enjoy those songs. But when they're desperately, desperately in need of help, what will my music do? How will it help them? Will it redeem them? Will it save them? Will it fight that battle for them? It's just a song.

[ Key to Success ] The American Dream

You can get amazing solace from hearing that someone else has suffered too.

Lauryn Hill: That's the point, you see. It's not about self-promotion. It's about reality, and the fact that I'm not more worthy or less worthy than anyone else.

s We're in this together.

Lauryn Hill: We're in this together. Someone wrote me a letter the other day, and there was a quote in it and it said, "Be careful how you speak to people. Because everyone is in a battle."

Thank you so much for a great interview.

Lauryn Hill: Okay, thank you.

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