Lauryn Noelle Hill (born May 26, 1975) is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. She is considered one of the most influential musicians of her time. A definitive figure in neo soul and a pioneer of rap-singing and melodic rap, The Telegraph credited Hill with the popularization of hip-hop. NPR named her one of the 50 Great Voices and stated that her "voice is the story of the hip-hop generation". She was the only woman named on the lists of "Greatest MCs of All Time" (2006) by MTV and 10 Greatest Rappers by Billboard, and appeared on Rolling Stone's 200 Greatest Singers and VH1's 100 Women in Music.
Hill began her career as a teen actress, portraying Kira Johnson in the soap opera As the World Turns (1991) before appearing in Steven Soderbergh's film King of the Hill (1993). She received acclaim for her role as Rita Watson in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993), which featured her rendition of "His Eye Is on the Sparrow." Hill achieved prominence as the frontwoman of the Fugees. Their second album, The Score (1996), included the singles "Killing Me Softly" and "Ready or Not," and sold over 22 million copies worldwide. It won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album, making Hill the first woman to receive the honor.
Her debut solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998), debuted atop the Billboard 200 with the highest first-week sales for a female artist at the time and became the first recording by a female rapper to be certified diamond. Its lead single "Doo Wop (That Thing)" debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making Hill the first artist whose first appearance on both charts debuted at number one. The album produced several hits, including "Ex-Factor," "Everything Is Everything," and "Lost Ones." At the 41st Annual Grammy Awards, Hill became the first rapper to win Album of the Year and the first woman to win five awards in a single night. It remains one of the best-selling albums worldwide and ranked atop Apple Music's 100 Best Albums. Afterwards, she embarked on The Miseducation Tour and became the first rapper to appear on the cover of Time.
Around this period, Hill became a noted collaborator, featuring on "If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)" by Nas, "Guantanamera" by Wyclef Jean with Celia Cruz, "The Sweetest Thing" by Refugee Camp All-Stars, and the virtual duet "Turn Your Lights Down Low" with Bob Marley. She wrote "A Rose Is Still a Rose" by Aretha Franklin, and produced recordings for Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige, and Santana. Her live album MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 (2002), featured original tracks such as "I Gotta Find Peace of Mind" and "Mystery of Iniquity", the latter of which was notably interpolated on "All Falls Down" by Kanye West. In the years that followed, Hill made fewer public appearances while occasionally releasing singles, including the Black Lives Matter protest song "Black Rage" and the Nas collaboration "Nobody".
Hill is the recipient of numerous accolades including eight Grammy Awards (the most for any female rapper), the inaugural BET Living Legend Icon Award, the ASCAP Golden Note Award, four NAACP Image Awards (including the President's Award), and six MTV Video Music Awards (including Video of the Year), with inductions into the Grammy Hall of Fame, the National Recording Registry, and the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame. In 2026, she was nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Lauryn Noelle Hill was born on May 26, 1975, in East Orange, New Jersey. Her mother, Valerie Hill, was an English teacher, and her father, Mal Hill, a computer and management consultant. She has one sibling, an older brother named Malaney Hill, a computer engineer, who was born in 1972 and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. Her Baptist family moved to New York for a short period before settling in South Orange.
Hill has said of her musically oriented family: "There were so many records, so much music constantly being played. My mother played the piano, my father sang, and we were always surrounded by music." Her father sang in local nightclubs and at weddings. While growing up, Hill frequently listened to Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, and Gladys Knight; years later she recalled playing Marvin Gaye's What's Going On repeatedly until she fell asleep to it.
In middle school, Hill performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" before a basketball game. Due to its popularity, subsequent games featured a recording of her rendition. In 1988, Hill appeared as an Amateur Night contestant on It's Showtime at the Apollo. She sang her version of the Smokey Robinson track "Who's Lovin' You." Stumbling out of the gate to hit her notes, she initially garnered a mixed reaction from the crowd, but persevered through the performance, which ended in applause.
Hill attended Columbia High School, where she was a member of the track team, cheerleading squad and was a classmate of actor Zach Braff. She also took violin lessons, went to dance class, and founded the school's gospel choir. Academically, she took advanced placement classes and received primarily 'A' grades. School officials recognized her as a leader among the student body. Later recalling her education, Hill commented, "I had a love for—I don't know if it was necessarily for academics, more than it just was for achieving, period. If it was academics, if it was sports, if it was music, if it was dance, whatever it was, I was always driven to do a lot in whatever field or whatever area I was focusing on at the moment."
While a freshman in high school, through mutual friends, Prakazrel "Pras" Michel approached Hill about a music group he was creating. Hill and Pras began under the name Translator Crew. They came up with this name because they wanted to rhyme in different languages. Another female vocalist was soon replaced by Michel's cousin, multi-instrumentalist Wyclef Jean. The group began performing in local showcases and high school talent shows. 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. Hill later said, "I remember doing my homework in the bathroom stalls of hip-hop clubs."
While growing up, Hill took acting lessons in Manhattan. She 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. While the play was not a success, an agent noticed her. Later that year, Hill began appearing on the soap opera As the World Turns in a recurring role as troubled teenager Kira Johnson. She 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. In it, she performed the songs "His Eye Is on the Sparrow" (a duet with Tanya Blount) and "Joyful, Joyful."
Director Bill Duke credited Hill with improvising a rap in a scene: "None of that was scripted. That was all Lauryn. She was amazing." Critic Roger Ebert said she had "a big joyful voice," although he thought her talent was wasted, while Rolling Stone said she "performed marvelously against type ... in the otherwise perfunctory [film]." Hill also appeared in Steven Soderbergh's 1993 motion picture King of the Hill, in a minor but pivotal role as a 1930s gum-popping elevator operator. Soderbergh biographer Jason Wood described her as supplying one of the warmest scenes in the film. Hill graduated from Columbia High School in 1993.
1993–1998: Success with the Fugees and motherhood
Pras, Hill and Jean renamed their group Fugees, a derivative of the word "refugee," which was a derogatory term for Haitian Americans. Hill began a romantic relationship with Jean. As a teen, Hill acted on As the World Turns and in Sister Act 2. She used that money to help finance the early days of the group before they were signed. The Fugees, who signed a contract with Columbia/Ruffhouse Records in 1993, became known for their genre blending, particularly of reggae, rock and soul, which was first experimented on their debut album, Blunted on Reality, released in 1994. It reached No. 62 on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart but overall sold poorly and was met by poor critical reviews due to their management's insistence they adopt gangsta rap attitudes. Although the album made little impact, Hill's rapping on "Some Seek Stardom" was seen as a highlight. Within the group, she was frequently referred to by the nickname "L. Boogie." Hill's image and artistry, as well as her full, rich, raspy alto voice, placed her at the forefront of the band, with some fans urging her to begin a solo career.