If you have 12 minutes to spare today, Lauryn Hill has written a 3,000 word soliloquy addressing allegations that fellow musician Robert Glasper made about her in an interview earlier this month. Some of the allegations made by Glasper include plagiarism, and claims that she treated her band like crap during her 2008 tour.
“She took the credit for making the classic album. Those songs were written by other people and they did not get their credit,” Glasper during the interview with The Madd Hatta Morning Show. “You’ve already stolen all of my friends’ music. Miseducation was made by great musicians and producers that I know personally. You got a big hand off of music you didn’t even write.
“You haven’t done enough to be the way you are. You just have not. The one thing you did that was great, you didn’t do. ... She couldn’t tune her guitar in rehearsal,” he continued.
Hill, who says she hasn’t done an interview in years, denied any mistreatment to her band members and also denied Glasper’s plagiarism allegations.
“These are my songs, musicians are brought in because of the masterful way that they play their instruments,” Hill writes. “You may be able to make suggestions, but you can’t write FOR me. I am the architect of my creative expression. No decisions are made without me.”
Hill also went on to speak about the boundaries she may not have established with the musicians she worked with outside of the Fugees, and she also says she had no “details or recollection” of cutting band’s pay.
“If fees had been negotiated and confirmed without my knowledge, I may have asked for them to be adjusted. But I would never just cut a musician’s pay arbitrarily unless I had a legitimate reason,” Hill wrote. “There are artists who do cut pay though, James Brown was notorious for docking musicians if they did something he didn’t like, I’m sure there are others.”
As far as the complaints about lateness and her shows never starting on time, Hill blames it on switching up her shows at the last minute.
“Me being late to shows isn’t because I don’t respect my fans or their time, but the contrary, It can be argued that I care too much, and insist on things being right. I like to switch my show up regularly, change arrangements, add new songs, etc. This often leads to long sound checks, which leads to doors opening late, which leads to the show getting a late start. This element of perfectionism is about wanting the audience to experience the very best and most authentic musical experience they can from what I do,” she states.
Read the full essay here.