Lauryn Hill Is Working on a New Album

There is at least one generation of fans who know Lauryn Hill more for her spotty live performances than for her savant-like run in the mid- and late-1990s. The rapper and singer is now known--expected, even--to show up hours late for gigs, and to run through near-unrecognizable reprises of her most famous songs. Despite that (and despite her three-month stint in prison for tax evasion), her 1998 solo debut, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, remains one of the seminal works from a crowded time in the rap canon. According to a producer who has been working with Hill on new material, that record's proper follow-up might finally be on the horizon.

Interviewed for an essay about Hill's politics and career arc at The Fader, Phil Nicolo, a producer and one of the founders of Ruffhouse Records, talks about his time in the studio with Hill. “She has to be given the space and ability to try things,” he says, "sometimes your immediate impression is: ‘You want to do what?’ But I enjoy working with her more than every other artist.” Nicolo says that Hill has amassed enough material for a new album, one which would be in somewhat the same vein as Miseducation. That said, Nicolo also spoke at lengths about Hill's perfectionism, and noted that she delivered work on time for a new Nina Simone documentary largely because there was a hard, natural deadline.