25 May THE CULT OF LAURYN HILL: An Alternative View

The Cult of Lauryn Hill: An Alternative View By Tola Ositelu My first introduction to Lauryn Hill was way back in the mid-‘90s. In hindsight it was a rather late one. Most people were already familiar with her 1993 appearance in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, which for some reason had escaped my attention up until then. I remember first hearing Ms Hill’s name early 1996. I was half-way through my GCSE’s, a new girl had joined my class; a true R&B/Hip-Hop head fresh from Nigeria. I kept hearing her talk about this group called the Fujis (as I thought it was spelt then), which she explained was short for ‘Refugee.’ I asked my best friend at the time - Maggie, who was a bit of a Hip Hop connoisseur - if she had heard of them. Of course she was very familiar with the Fugees debut Blunted on Reality, the singles, at least. It was also around that time I recall listening to Kiss FM 100 (when it actually cared about things like diversity and credibility) and hearing one DJ getting excited over the release of the follow album The Score, name-checking ‘The Girl from Sister Act who can really sing’. Assuming he was talking about the first film, I thought he referred to the timid little ginger nun; I was shocked to think she was making forays into urban music. Maggie soon corrected my mistake.