Three-time Grammy-winning Jazz producer Robert Glasper recently did an interview with Houston’s 97.9.
They asked him if he had ever worked with difficult artists. He was more than happy to sell out Lauryn Hill.
Glasper explained that in 2008 Hill was doing a one-off 20-minute show for half a million dollars and she brought him on to play the piano. Then things went awry.
"My boy's like, Lauryn has a show in New York. Do you want to play?’ I’m like ‘Alright, what’s the deal?,'” Robert Glasper said. “He’s like ‘We’re rehearsing one week for a 20-minute show.’ I’m like ‘Oh okay, cool.’ So, we rehearse a whole week. Like 10 hours a day. Every day she comes in and changes the show. Changes what she wants to do completely. The last rehearsal, she doesn’t show up. Her manager shows up and says ‘Lauryn’s not really feeling the way that you guys have been learning the music. So, we’re gonna cut your pay in half.'”
Glasper said the band -- which he described as a "super band"-- was doing a great job, and Hill has a history of firing and punishing bands for no reason.
Glasper went on to say Hill was the worst kind of diva. Then he dropped this nugget about her one album, 1998's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which she is credited with writing and producing with very little help.
“You can’t come into a situation, especially when you’ve already stolen all of my friend’s music. Miseducation was made by great musicians and producers that I know personally…I went into it knowing ‘Okay, you steal music,'” he said. "So you got a big head about music you didn't write .. the one thing you did that you did great, you didn't do."
Glasper went on to argue that Hill hasn't been able to repeat the success of Miseducation because it wasn't really her project in the first place.
Jump to the 27-minute mark to hear Glasper take down Hill.