Hill is credited with breaking barriers for female rappers, contributing to the mainstream success of both hip-hop and neo soul, and blending rap with melodic vocals.

[14][15] While growing up, Hill frequently listened to Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, and Gladys Knight;[16] years later she recalled playing Marvin Gaye's What's Going On repeatedly until she fell asleep to it.

[10][20] 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.

"[10] Critic Roger Ebert called her "the girl with the big joyful voice", although he thought her talent was wasted,[22] while Rolling Stone said she "performed marvelously against type ... in the otherwise perfunctory [film]".

[26] 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.

[34] Buttressed by what Rolling Stone publications later called Hill's "evocative" vocal line[16] and her "amazing pipes",[32] the track became pervasive on pop, R&B, hip hop, and adult contemporary radio formats.

[37] Hill also raised money for Haitian refugees, supported clean water well-building projects in Kenya and Uganda, and staged a rap concert in Harlem to promote voter registration.

A 1997 benefit event for the Refugee Project introduced a board of trustees for the organization that included Sean Combs, Mariah Carey, Busta Rhymes, Spike Lee, and others as members.

[43] Hill later said that she wanted to "write songs that lyrically move me and have the integrity of reggae and the knock of hip-hop and the instrumentation of classic soul" and that the production on the album was intended to make the music sound raw and not computer-aided.

[20][47] David Browne, writing in Entertainment Weekly, called it "an album of often-astonishing power, strength, and feeling", and praised Hill for "easily flowing from singing to rapping, evoking the past while forging a future of her own".

[48] Robert Christgau quipped, "PC record of the year—songs soft, singing ordinary, rapping skilled, rhymes up and down, skits de trop, production subtle and terrific".

[11] In June 1999, she received an Essence Award, but her acceptance speech, where she said there was no contradiction in religious love and servitude and "[being] who you are, as fly and as hot and as whatever",[64] drew reaction from those in the public who thought she was not a good role model as a young, unwed mother of two.

Also, her concocted duet with Bob Marley on "Turn Your Lights Down Low" for the 1999 remix tribute album Chant Down Babylon additionally appeared in the 1999 film The Best Man and later received a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.

[66] The musicians claimed to be the primary songwriters on two tracks, and major contributors on several others, though Gordon Williams, a prominent recorder, engineer, and mixer on Miseducation, described the album as a "powerfully personal effort by Hill" and said, "It was definitely her vision.

[17] She also began producing a romantic comedy about soul food with a working title of Sauce, and accepted a starring role in the film adaptation of Toni Morrison's novel Beloved;[17] she later dropped out of both projects due to pregnancy.

[17][43] She fired her management team and began attending Bible study classes five days a week; she also stopped doing interviews, watching television, and listening to music.

[26] Hill began touring on her own, although to mixed reviews; often arriving late to concerts (sometimes by over two hours), performing unpopular reconfigurations of her songs and sporting an exaggerated appearance.

[108] Hill has described the song as being "about the derivative effects of racial inequity and abuse" and "a juxtaposition to the statement 'life is good,' which she believes can only be so when these long standing issues are addressed and resolved.

[111] In a long post to her Tumblr, Hill said that she had gone "underground" and had rejected pop culture's "climate of hostility, false entitlement, manipulation, racial prejudice, sexism, and ageism."

[130] The festival's purpose was to showcase the efforts of musicians and artists from around the African diaspora like Brooklyn Haitian Rara band Brother High Full Tempo.

[136] The Fugees were scheduled to start a reunion tour in August 2024 but the U.S. dates were quietly canceled three days before the first show, with no reason given to customers receiving refunds,[137] but Hill cited "clickbait headlines" and low-ticket sales as an explanation.

[140] In October 2024, Pras sued Hill for breach of contract and fraud, accusing her of mismanaging the budgeting of their tour in "a veiled and devious attempt to make a big score for herself".

"[153] According to celebrity hairstylist Yusef Williams, who styled Rihanna's hair on the set of Ocean's 8, the singer "channeled her inner Lauryn Hill" while wearing locs for her role in the movie.

The Refugee Project's board of directors included Mariah Carey, Spike Lee, actor Malcolm Jamal Warner, and rappers Busta Rhymes, Q-Tip, and Nas.

[196] That same year, she performed at the Amnesty International 'Bringing Human Rights Home' benefit concert in New York, in support of Pussy Riot; where she gave a rendition of her protest song "Black Rage".

[229] Writing for The Ringer, author Musa Okwonga wrote "Decades before the ubiquity of the MC who could also croon, she could channel the greatness of Nina Simone and Rakim in the same set.

"[230] In Complex, Andy Gee commented that "the modern music landscape is dominated by artists like Drake and Nicki Minaj, who fall in the Lauryn Hill archetype as traditionalist-appeasing MCs who have records where they're singing their hearts out.

In the survey, she was ranked the most respected solo artist, and placed among the acts that participants thought best defined their generation; with former Viacom executive Todd Cunningham referring to Hill as a "massive phenomenon".

[287] Hill's vocals from her work with the Fugees has been sampled or interpolated by countless artists, including DJ Khaled & Nas, Busta Rhymes,[282] The Weeknd & Kendrick Lamar,[288] Meek Mill,[289] Jay-Z,[290] and Mariah Carey (on the single "Save the Day", from her compilation album The Rarities).

2.0 including Frank Ocean (on the Jazmine Sullivan-featured "Rushes" from his 2016 album Endless),[292] Method Man ("Say"),[287] and most notably Kanye West ("All Falls Down" featuring Syleena Johnson).